Amenaza
by Alban55
Summary: After Naruto dies, he changes into a Hollow.  This single death will change the lives and afterlives of many.  And it's not exactly for the better.
1. Hueco

Amenaza

**Author's Note**: Well, here I am in my first story, so go easy on me, please. This isn't actually the first story I've put down, but it is the only one I've really laid out, as the rest of them I haven't figured out how to go about them. I will put those out in time, though.

Well, as you can see, I'm putting out a Naruto/Bleach Crossover, which is already common. However, this story will feature Naruto as a Hollow, instead of a Shinigami.

Out of all the time I've been reading fanfiction here, I have seen two very well written Hollow/Arrancar Naruto stories(_Antagonist _and _Cracked Mask_). My plot line will differ almost completely from those two, but I may have some overlapping concepts thrown in my story. I am not however, trying to copy.

**Pairings**: Like most guys, I can't stand yaoi/shounen-ai/etc. Do **_NOT _**ask me to put**_ any _**yaoi pairings into my writings, because its not happening. **_Ever. _**I tend to avoid pairings altogether, as they don't really have a place in the type of stories I write. Don't get me wrong, I think many successful stories utilize pairing to their fullest, but I don't see it happening in my story.

As for this story, I have already decided against any pairings. Sorry, but I've made up my mind on this, and its not changing.

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Naruto or Bleach.

* * *

Chapter 1: Hueco**  
**

Naruto's fingers fiddled with the strange chain links that were protruding out of his chest. He closed his eyes, noticing the slight pain in his chest that occurred every time he aggravated the chain. The pain wasn't what was bothering him, though.

No, instead, Naruto was focused on the exact copy of himself that lay on the ground unmoving. He hadn't used any clones, so there was no reason that there should be two of him. Besides that, the "clone" seemed much more solid and defined than Naruto himself, and he wasn't packing a bizarre chain. Naruto took a look at his hand; it seemed, well, hazy for some reason. In the back of his mind, he knew what had happened, even if he didn't want to believe it himself.

He felt a little dizzy. Was that normal? Ninjas weren't supposed to have emotional breakdowns. His legs in particular didn't seem to be responding.

His legs finally gave out on him, and his eyes glossed over. He knew he was as dead as a doornail. He could remember his death in clear detail, and knew that the "clone" laying over there was his corpse. But what really got him was the implications of what dying meant for him.

"_I... failed."  
_

He placed his hand up onto his face, digging his nails into the flesh. That was the worst thing about it; the fact that he had failed to protect his village.

With previous actions, it would seem Naruto was invincible, but death is a cruel thing. It can turn the most bright and confident individuals, in this case Naruto, into very gaunt and pessimistic people. Naruto was a particularly extreme case, considering his personality, and the way he had died.

Because his death was _pathetic._

* * *

"You give up..." Naruto roared as he used the last of his clones to create a Rasengan to use on the temporarily weakened God Realm. "Thinking I'm gonna give up!" he finished as he rammed his Rasengan into the last Pain body.

_The Pain body grimaced as the deadly ball of chakra ripped into his body. The Shinra Tensei technique had left behind a multitude of rocks behind him, and the deadly attacked had sent the dying God realm directly into them.  
_

_Naruto moved shakily toward the Pain body, attempting to take out one of the metal rods... _

_He collapsed to the ground no more than one second later._

What had killed Uzumaki Naruto was not Pain. It was not Akatsuki, or any high level jutsu. It wasn't even a jutsu. In fact, Uzumaki Naruto had just died from one of the simplest and unlikely ways.

_Chakra exhaustion._

"_How is that even possible_," was the only thought that ran through Naruto's head as the spirit finally collected himself. The Yondaime... no; his father, had apparently replenished his chakra while restoring the seal. So, just _what_ went wrong?

"What the hell is this thing?" cried Naruto. He was still messing with the chain on his chest, and he couldn't see any clear purpose it had. He yanked on the chain, and an extremely sharp jolt of pain rocketed through his body. He dropped it like it was a venomous snake, resolving himself to not touch it. The chain was giving off a very ominous aura, and Naruto was tempted to touch it anyway. Luckily for him, something would come along to distract him for the time being. Unfortunately, it couldn't exactly be considered a blessing in any way, shape, or form.

This was because people were beginning to enter the secluded clearing where he had died.

During the course of a few minutes, Naruto's heart sank more and more. People who he cared about were showing themselves, clearing looking for him. He could see Katsuyu perched on Lee's shoulder.

He gasped when Sakura entered the area. Not noticing sets of teeth appear on the chain, Naruto watched the pink-haired Chuunin and the rest of his friends make their way to the area where Katsuyu pointed them to...

* * *

Sakura, along with Team Gai, and a newly healed Hinata, walked over to where Naruto and Pain had finished their battle. Katsuyu mentioned that Naruto had fallen unconscious, and Sakura immediately decided that enough was enough. Naruto was to go back to the village in order to receive medical aid.

"He's over here," stated the miniature Katsuyu. She didn't know what had come over Naruto when one of her smaller selves was suddenly dispelled, apparently by the blonde's own volition. Granted, the slug summon had just assumed that Naruto had defeated Pain, and that he was merely exhausted.

Sakura breathed a small sigh of relief, the feeling of anxiety disappearing from her mind. Hinata looked at the collapsed Naruto, before she breathed a sigh of relief.

"N-Naruto, thank God..." she stated. Sakura smiled at her reassuringly, and performed some quick handseals. Her hands glowed with a soothing greenish chakra, which she then placed over Naruto's chest.

Sakura was beginning to heal him, but she was suddenly overcome with a sense of panic and fear. Something was wrong with Naruto. He looked cold and clammy, and upon closer inspection; he wasn't breathing, a clear absence of life. She didn't know why she hadn't noticed this before. In a desperate motion, Sakura focused chakra to her ear and pressed it over Naruto's heart, praying for the presence of a heartbeat.

There was none.

"N-Naruto," she managed to get out, the chakra fading from her hands.

"Sakura-chan" whispered Naruto. It broke his heart to see her like this, and despite the fact that he was the victim, he couldn't help but feel guilty. Guilty because he had failed her alongside Konoha.

_Clink._

"Oh, God," murmured Naruto when he saw Sakura break down in tears. He didn't register the small, but noticeable reaction his chain gave while he was watching the spectacle. But, he didn't cry, not even after watching Sakura unleash a blood-curdling scream to the sky.

The others were startled as they heard Sakura scream to the sky, yelling questions and curse words to God, apparently. Naruto couldn't really tell; she was pretty much blubbering at this point.

"S-Sakura-san, what's wrong... why are you screaming these.." Lee stopped in mid-sentence as he saw his friend, collapsed in the dirt. His eyes widened.

Sakura ignored Lee's rabid questioning as she began pumping more and more medical chakra in Naruto, desperately praying that he would revive. "_No. ... NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!" _Sakura screamed in her mind as her last ditch effort in helping Naruto had failed. Sakura then buried herself in his lifeless chest.

But, now was a time for confusion. What exactly had killed Naruto? From her perspective, there were no signs of a battle. Only small wounds littered his body, nowhere near enough to cause death. Intrigued against her will, Sakura focused on internal causes. What she found shook her to the core. His chakra coils were strained, almost like they were using too much chakra.

"_Chakra exhaustion?"_ she screamed in her mind.

* * *

If someone told Haruno Sakura that her teammate and friend Uzumaki Naruto had died from chakra exhaustion, she would initially react with disbelief, followed by anger and a nasty punch to the poor guy. But, despite seeing Naruto's dead body in front of her, she still acted with disbelief. She focused her hands in a Genjutsu release seal... there was no reaction.

True to her word, the second thing she felt was anger. Anger particularly directed at her now deceased blond teammate. "Why! You were supposed to get much stronger with this Sennin training, and **HERE YOU DIE OF FUCKING CHAKRA EXHAUSTION!**"

"YOU IDIOT! **I HATE YOU!**" Sakura screamed as she rained down heavy punches on the helpless corpse. However, despite her actions, her mind told her that she did not hate Naruto, but that his loss was simply causing her anger. Of course, this made no difference to the newly dead Naruto.

"S-S-Sakura-c-chan." Naruto's heart broke right then and there. An overwhelming torrent of despair was about to hit him. But, he was Uzumaki Naruto; he had been through a lot worse, and he turned out okay.

"_Shit, this is too much." _Naruto's attempt to hold back his death and Sakura's rejection failed. Naruto's chain had began to corrode again. The noise of teeth greedily munching away at the metal drew his attention to it.

"Huh?" Naruto said intelligently as he noticed the corrosion of the chain for the first time. He immediately pulled on it, but the pain was unbearable and it only seemed to hasten the process. Thirty seconds later, and the chain was halfway gone.

"_S-S-Shit, n-no, I have to stop this thing," _Naruto thought as he started choking. He gasped for breath, coughing and wheezing as his lungs continued to scream, no matter how much air he gulped. Naruto fell to his knees, and then...

_Saved._

Naruto remained to his knees, still gasping for air. He had finally gotten the chain under control, but the chain's action was bothering him. What the hell kind of chain tries to eat itself? And why was it here in the first place? The chain was now two-thirds of the way gone, but it didn't seem like it was going to eat itself again.

Naruto frowned. He had finally gotten over his previous depression, and was starting to look at the bigger picture. What was going to happen now? Was he doomed to forever wander the Earth as a wandering soul? Was he being punished by God? Or was this a regular occurrence? And how did the chain fit into the equation? More and more questions exploded into Naruto's head, and he was graced with no answers.

"I'll never get anywhere like this" he said out-loud. "I suppose I'll head back to the village for now." He shakily climbed to his feet, and vaguely wondered what good going to the village would do. He stared out at the massive wreck that was once Konoha... and began to walk toward it.

Naruto had just begun his short afterlife of being a Plus.

* * *

"D-Died?" spluttered out Lee. "That can't be true Sakura-san. Tell me it isn't true!" screamed Lee.

"It's true Lee. He died from chakra exhaustion," Sakura said quietly.

"Chakra exhaustion?" asked Neji. "Naruto died from something like that? How?" asked Neji.

"I don't know," said Sakura meekly, her anger finally subsiding into depressed sobs. "Maybe he just overdid it like he always does. I swear. . . he's always... such... a pain." Sakura smiled sadly, her wracking sobs overcoming her speech.

Hinata broke down again beside Sakura, her lavender eyes pouring with tears. Why did he have to die? Why was it always him!?

Sakura blinked, before thinking. Just where did Pain go? She had come to the conclusion beforehand that with his target dead, he had retreated. But, now she was having second thoughts.

"Well, the best thing we can do now is bring Naruto's body back to the village," said Sakura. She motioned to Lee and Tenten, who moved to pick up Naruto. Neji, while restraining his suicidal cousin, lead her back to the village.

By this point in time, Naruto was now wandering mindlessly through the remainder of the village. His eyes were not focused on any particular thing, but rather just taking in all he could at once. He paused, and then started to stare at one of the only still standing structures left in the entire village.

The Hokage monument. He had once dreamed of getting his face up there along with the rest of them, but that was nothing more than an empty dream now.

Meanwhile, Naruto's friends had now made their way back into the village, carrying his corpse. He felt an abrupt surge of anger at them. He didn't know why; it wasn't like he occupied the body anymore. That particular anger faded away when he saw Hinata being lead by Neji, bawling her eyes out. It must've been tough, proclaiming your love to someone only to have them die.

By that time, the rest of his friends had come up to ask what had happened. The shock and disappointment on their faces was one of the worst things Naruto could see at that moment. He turned away from them in shame, as if he were still visible to them.

* * *

"Geez, what happened! How could Naruto lose?" yelled Kiba, when the now Konoha 10 had congregated in the village to discuss their predicament. Kiba himself was both sad and angry at the deceased blond. Akamaru yipped in agreement at his side.

"Kiba! Naruto was capable of taking on Pain, who could take on the entire village! And thanks to him, Pain cannot attack the village anymore. Shouldn't Naruto's effort count for something?" argued Chouji. Naruto smiled at the thought that Chouji was defending him.

"That is correct," stated Shino. "We should not slander our deceased comrade's efforts over something as trivial as losing." Another smile from Naruto off to the side.

"But he left the village to gain power to take on Pain! He shouldn't have died. He should be right here with us!"

"Kiba..." whispered Naruto. While he usually fought with Kiba a lot, it... wasn't pleasant to hear those things.

Ino happened to join the conversation at that point.

"Maybe his death meant it was all he could do..." she said sadly.

"DON'T BE DISRESPECTFUL TOWARD NARUTO-KUN!" yelled Lee in anger. Even in mourning, Lee was always hearty.

Ino glared at him. "And were you being respectful when you just handed him off to the ANBU just like that?"

Naruto stiffened. They gave his body to _who? _The ANBU specialized in assassination and torture, not burial rites or anything of the matter. Unless they were just bringing his body to the morgue, they couldn't be doing anything pleasant...

Naruto looked at his friends one last time. He bowed his head in what looked like a half-hearted apology, before he turned to the village. The ANBU were a top priority for him.

A few minutes later, Naruto floated through what was left of the ANBU headquarters. For the first time since he died, Naruto grinned. He had found one of the advantages to being a ghost. It was something, at least. But that grin faded when he saw that there was no one in the entire building.

For the next hour, Naruto wandered around the rubble of the HQ looking for anything that might resemble his body. While he was sifting through some rubble near the western wall, he heard what appeared to be a squad of ANBU entering.

"So they're taking his body where?" asked one of the male members. Naruto's ears perked up as he inched closer to them to listen.

"Well, apparently Danzou wants his body so the Ne units took it. What that man wants with the demon's corpse is beyond me," replied the squad Captain.

Naruto ignored the poison the Captain put in his words. The demon was obviously him, but what did Danzou want with him? Shouldn't Baa-chan be stopping this?

Naruto grit his teeth. Unknown to most, Naruto had met Sai's superior several times throughout his life. He was originally one the many council members to propose his execution, but that morphed into wanting Naruto for the Ne organization. He had approached Naruto several times when he was a child, hoping to sway Naruto's opinion. At first, he had used the hatred of the villagers to try and control him, but eventually these turned into outright threats towards Naruto. If it wasn't for the intervention for the Sandaime, he probably would've been part of Ne organization a long time ago.

Whatever Danzou wanted with his body couldn't be good. But, Naruto didn't even know where Danzou was. How was he supposed to find him?

"The Godaime is in a coma. No one knows when she'll wake up, if ever. I hear that the Daimyo is going to make him the Rokudaime Hokage."

It was like a rock dropped itself into Naruto's stomach. "Baa-chan is in a coma, Baa-chan is in a coma," Naruto repeated over and over again. But Danzou was becoming the Hokage. If he knew anything about that man, it would be that he was the polar opposite to the Sandaime, and if he played his cards right, he would reduce Konoha and the Hi no Kuni to a totalitarian dictatorship, with himself in control.

Naruto clenched his fists. As a spirit, there was nothing he could do now. It was painfully tempting to just walk right up to Danzou and put a knife in his skull, but he didn't know if that would work. Naruto slumped against the wall. If he were still alive, he would be screaming about how he'd do something to stop Danzou, and then he's proclaim that he would be the one to be Hokage, and how he would save Sasuke, but now he was dead.

None of those things. Becoming Hokage, saving Sasuke. They didn't _matter_ anymore.

Naruto stopped his train of thought. Tsunade had been very lenient on Sasuke's retrieval, but now that she was out of commission, Danzou would...

"No," Naruto told himself. "I'm dead. Sasuke doesn't matter anymore. But.. I can't just let that guy become the Hokage like that. I have to do something!"

Naruto, for the first time since he had died. . had found a goal to work with. Maybe there was something that he could do in death after all.

* * *

Two weeks later, and Naruto had tried everything. He had screamed himself hoarse at the people of Konoha, and he had even attacked Danzou himself. Only to find that his words couldn't be heard by living people and he just passed right through Danzou.

All his skills, all his hard work to get those skills, had come crashing down on him in an instant, as he found out. What was worse that he seemed to be getting weaker over time. The chain had progressed at a slow, but noticeable corrosion, but only one chain link had disappeared over the last two weeks.

Naruto had gone to just wandering almost zombie-like throughout the center of the ruined village. He didn't need to eat; that at least was a little reassuring.

A dark, cloudy veil had settled itself over the village, something rare in the Hi no Kuni. The weather had cooled down immensely, and a biting wind coupled with rain pelted the repair workers. It was ironic. The unusual weather had hit Konoha on the same day as Danzou's initiation. It was as if the world itself was in stark protest to the tyranny about to take place.

Naruto was there during Danzou's initiation, lurking in the shadows as he saw the absolute worst possible choice become Hokage. Overall, Danzou's initiation hadn't been all that similar to Tsunade's. The ruined village reflected the opinions of the shinobi, who looked that they had just eaten something bitter. Danzou was flanked by the still standing Hokage monument, clothed in the full mantle of the Hokage, making him look quite intimidating and powerful.

The civilians however, not knowing of Danzou's history, were holding him in high praise. Their public opinion of him had soared in recent years, and they were all too eager to make him Hokage.

Danzou looked down on the village. His village would be a more accurate term. He smirked, before raising a gnarled hand to take off his hat. "I am the Rokudaime Hokage! I will now govern the Hidden Village of Konoha!" Danzou declared to the crowd.

The civilians erupted into cheers, and even some of the shinobi softened as Danzou gave his proclamation. There was something about his speech that seemed... sincere?

* * *

"Inu, Tora. Let me hear the progress on _that _experiment," said Danzou from his open office. It had been around a month since Danzou had taken the mantle of Hokage, and repairs were now underway in the village of Konoha. Although the village was nothing compared to its former glory, they have managed to set up a few small buildings, and were well underway towards a new Hokage Tower.

Right now, two ANBU were reporting in on the progress of some_ experiment_.

"Yes, it seems as though the Jinchuuriki's body has left trace amounts of the Kyuubi's chakra. The beast itself has clearly died. How we can utilize this chakra has yet to be seen," declared Inu.

Danzou nodded. "Yes, I would imagine that the ability to harness that chakra would be a difficult feat. But surely there is some way to use it properly,"

"We have already performed a number of experiments. It appears that the chakra reacts violently with its host, causing an almost instantaneous death to the user," continued Tora.

"That shows just how powerful the fox's chakra actually is. It took all of the masterful seal knowledge of the Yondaime to prevent the Kyuubi's chakra from harming the boy." Danzou clutched the end of his makeshift desk firmly. He narrowed his eyes, showing a strong hatred for something long past. Oh, how he'll show them. He'd show every one of them. . . .

While the village leader planned in his office, the village of Konoha was in a happy mood. Repairs were well underway, and with the new Hokage instituted, the village would be back on its feet in no time.

Sakura smiled lightly as she wandered around the area. She didn't believe that Konoha was capable of recovering at such an alarming rate. Stands for businesses had appeared, and even some small buildings had begun to pop up. The smells of familiar foods stood out, and the laughing of children pervaded the village as they played. All in all, it looked like a Konoha without its buildings, and nothing less.

Seeing such a remarkable recovery after such a devastating attack made Sakura thoroughly convinced that her beloved village would never fall. Yes, Konohagakure would never fall. The "Will of Fire" burned too strongly for that to happen. They were the strongest village in the world, and would never fall!

"Hey! Sakura!"

Sakura was torn from her patriotic thoughts by a sudden shout. The blonde Yamanaka heiress was standing a distance away, and was waving at the pink-haired Chuunin.

"Ino?"

The Yamanaka began to move towards her, a smile lighting her face. "How've you been?" she asked.

Sakura smiled widely. "Very good, but with all these recent missions I've had to take, I feel like I will work myself to death."

Ino laughed loudly. "I hear that. But surely the village has come a long way thanks to those missions. I must say, our new Hokage is really something. Even Chuunins like ourselves have heard nothing but bad things about him before, but he's done such a good job!"

Sakura frowned substantially. She remembered that Ino didn't know anything about Danzou or his past actions. She paused, deciding to keep her knowledge of Danzou a secret. "I heard he's making a big announcement tomorrow afternoon. Anyone Chuunin and above has been scheduled to hear it," she said.

"Hmm, is that right? Well, I'm sure whatever it is, I'm sure it will be beneficial to Konoha. So I guess I'll see you at the meeting tomorrow; that's all I needed to talk to you about" Ino waved goodbye, leaving Sakura to think by herself.

"_Hmm, never fall."  
_

* * *

One and a half months of this. Naruto was damn close to losing his mind. His precious village had fallen to a tyrant, and he never even found out what Danzou wanted with his body. Hell, right now he even had trouble _walking._

Today was the day the damned "Mummy", as Naruto so aptly named him, gave his stupid-ass speech about something useless to the entire village.

Not that Naruto actually cared about anything that bastard did anymore. Ever since his death, Naruto had astonished himself by his lack of concern towards the village. It could've well been that he had tried to convince himself that this was just some horrible dream. That he was asleep in his apartment. The village was still standing, Danzou wasn't Hokage; and most importantly, that he wasn't _dead._

He looked up from his position, and saw that Danzou had make himself visible over the railway. A good sized crowd had gathered around the Hokage monument. Naruto noted that he was making an announcement over the entire village. It must've been something big then, if he was making this annoucement on top of the Hokage "tower".

Danzou cleared his throat. "Citizens of Konohagakure no Sato! Today, we have made a remarkable discovery! This discovery will make the village of Konoha roar throughout the world, as the world's top military power! No more will we be threatened by the barbarians of Iwa, Kiri, and Kumo, and not even the organization of Akatsuki will be able to phase us!"

Amazed voices washed throughout the crowd from both ninja and civilian alike. What their beloved Hokage was saying seemed too good to be true.

"With the death of the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki, Uzumaki Naruto, our researchers have managed to find residual amounts of the beast's chakra left inside the body. We have experimented diligently on the body and have managed a way to isolate the chakra. With this, our own shinobi are now capable of wielding a fraction of the chakra of the Kyuubi no Youko!"

A stunned silence permeated the area. Slowly, a few protesting voices rose, gradually becoming a torrent of rioting villagers. The villagers of course, didn't understand the situation, and were outraged that the source of their hatred still existed.

For the shinobi, it was a different story. They of course understood the capabilities of such power. As such, they were in full support of their Hokage.

They cheered, yelling praises and compliments at him. Naruto looked around, and his heart fell. His _friends_, Kiba, Shikamaru, Chouji, Ino, Lee, Neji, Sai, and the rest of them, stood silent. Some of them seemed too ashamed to say anything. While they weren't in support of the decision, they weren't exactly vocal in protesting it.

Naruto stood still, his hands clenched at his sides. "_Those bastards. . . . Those bastards. . . They_." Naruto couldn't finish his sentence. He attempted to think of Iruka-sensei and the rest of his precious people, and thought of the consequences of revenge. But no, it was too true. An insane surge of hatred for Konoha, even larger than the hate he held in his earlier life, began to emerge.

As Naruto's rage reached its peak, the chain on his chest began to erode for the first time in weeks. This time, Naruto paid it no mind, and actually embraced the feeling.

He never knew how... _intoxicating_ it was.

The teeth corroded away the last of the chain, and Naruto's rage disappeared... in exchange for immense pain, as well as a deep hunger.

"Wh-Wha-What's happening?" screamed Naruto, as he fell to his knees. The former ninja hissed and roared as a hole began to open up over his heart where the chain once was. Gradually, it increased in size until it was as large as a basketball. Naruto desperately gasped for air, while clutching his head with his hands.

He bucked and thrashed around like a crazed lunatic, and he glowed with a soft white energy. In spite of this, Naruto was actually going through an excruciating experience, as he began to mutate more.

Eventually... his human body disintegrated.

Around 300 feet away, Naruto's body reformed. The only thing left unchanged was his head, but that was going to go too.

Naruto's eyes rolled to the back of his head, as he stood painfully straight. White material burst forth from his eyes and mouth, hovering in the air for a minute, before they began to cover his face.

The white material hardened, revealing a canine-like mask. From the two eye holes, two evil looking black and yellow eyes appeared. The beast roared, letting out an amazing shockwave that reverbarated all over Konoha.

* * *

If you looked at Hosokaya Masaru, all you would see is the plainest, most boring, and most average Shinigami in Soul Society, and this is right on the dot. An unseated Shinigami, Masaru was always looking for a seat in the Gotei 13's 10th Division. Luckily for him, he was one of the Shinigami sent to patrol the Elemental Countries. Considering the recent attack of Pain, he would be the one to purify every Plus in Konoha, an achievement that would surely recieve praise.

Right now, he was giving Konso to one Hatake Kakashi, who had apparently died in the attack. Masaru had to admit, he was impressed with the man's power. Freshly dead, and his reiatsu reading was already that of a seated-officer. If the guy became a Shinigami, he could easily become a Vice-Captain.

But, as the Shinigami noted, Hatake seemed very confused. He was all too aware he was dead, of course, but he seemed to believe he was under attack, considering he had a kunai poised for attack.

"Whoa, whoa, easy there. I'm not here to attack you," Masaru held up free hand in a compromising gesture. Kakashi wasn't convinced, and remained fully focused on the glimmering blade that was currently clutched in Masaru's hand.

"Then why have you drawn your katana if you don't mean to attack me?" asked Kakashi. Even if he already knew that he was dead, the man still was still a shinobi, and was able to deal with this situation in a very level headed manner.

The Shinigami scratched his head. This would take a while to explain. Not many souls had the audacity to attack a Shinigami. Usually it was just locate the soul, quickly give it a Konsou, and then move on to the next one. A simple process, and there was no time for chitchat in between.

"First of all, I must tell you that I. . . . am a Shinigami," said Masaru cautiously. He didn't know why he would start out with that; any human in their right mind was unlikely to believe him.

Kakashi narrowed his eyes. "What kind of lie is this?" he asked.

Masaru rubbed his temples. "Whether you believe me or not, the fact remains that you have died, and have nothing left for you if you remain here. You can't stay here forever, so I'm here to escort you to Soul Society." Kakashi continued to look skeptical.

"What is this Soul Society place? And what does that have to do with a sword? I've never heard of any afterlife where the soul is transported via a sword."

Masaru held up a finger.

"First of all, Soul Society is what you people call "Heaven". You get sent there by a Konsou, which involves hitting the forehead with the back of this here Zanpakutou."

Kakashi relaxed slightly, but still didn't drop his guard completely. "Uh-huh," he said, still not believing the story. "You mentioned that I couldn't stay here forever. What did you mean by that? Why should I have to leave my village?"

"Because if you stay here too long you'll eventually turn into a Hol-". While Masaru was talking, he was cutoff mid-sentence by a guttural roar and a burst of reiatsu. The Shinigami's heightened senses focused in on the source, and he bit his bottom.

"Dammit! A Hollow. Now!" he screamed. Acting quickly, he performed the Konsou before Kakashi had any time to react, a surprisingly fast action, and sprinted to the source of the Hollow that had just been born.

* * *

Bleary from his transformation, Naruto still stood despite of himself. What was he doing again? Oh yeah, Danzou had dropped the bomb on all of Konoha, and all those years of hard work went down the drain. With resumed anger and hate, Naruto slashed a claw at the nearest object, and noted for the first time that his hand was different.

"_Wait, claw?" _Naruto flexed the canine-like claw in front of his face.

"**WHAT!**" roared Naruto. His eyes washed themselves over his new body, and the differences between it and his human body were truly staggering.

He was a four-legged creature, about eight feet in total. His body was much bulkier than he was as a human, with his entire torso covered in a coarse, red fur. On a face was a mask that was very canine in appearance, with two fox ear projections coming out of both sides, and completely non-human teeth. There were two parallel red markings that began at his cheeks, and then ran all the way up to curl around his forehead, taking a stop at each of his eyes. Out of his backside sprouted a single tail. There was something off about this tail though. It was extremely light, almost like there was no substance inside of it. It seemed almost. . . . _hollow._

Being distracted and flipping out for the moment, Naruto barely had time to register the sword that was about to crash into his mask. He felt the sharp edge just touch his mask, and he forced himself to clumsily move out of the way.

"Who the hell are you?" asked Naruto, sneering at the Shinigami. An insane rage that Naruto didn't believe himself capable of surged through him as the asshole had the gall to _laugh_.

"You must be a new Hollow if you're asking me such a question. I don't know if I could get any luckier, getting only one greenhorn Hollow in all this mess here. But, I suppose I should answer your question. My name's Hosokaya Masaru, Shinigami of the 10th Division."

Naruto tilted his head, but otherwise didn't question the odd title in which Masaru addressed himself. "So, tell me _Shinigami_, why the hell did you just attack me?"

Masaru grinned cheekily. "Now that question... I have no reason to answer you."

Masaru wasted no time in pressing his attack on the new Hollow. He quickly drew his Zanpakutou, immediately going for a vertical slash on Naruto's mask.

The Hollow retaliated, moving his head out of the way, and swiped his hand sideways, catching the Shinigami off-guard. His large claw grabbed the Shinigami's face, and he then threw him with all the force he could muster. Masaru crashed into a building, laying prone for a few seconds before he shakily rose to his feet.

There was no longer any sort of grin on his face. Naruto looked at him, and realized something. This Shinigami was likely used to things just going his way. If something unexpected happened, he would have no way to react to it.

Masaru roared at the Hollow, the grip on his Zanpakutou tightening as he recklessly swung at the Hollow, who dodged all the swings.. Then, Masaru saw a second claw crash into him, sending him careening away.

"_T-This is a new Hollow! His combat abilities. . and his reiatsu are unreal!"_

Naruto gave him no time to retaliate this time. With a speed unmatched by his former ninja self, he was already bearing down upon the wounded Shinigami. Ruthlessly, he brought down his claw yet again. The abused Shinigami gave a grunt of pain, before a tail wrapped around his midsection, hoisting him up to Naruto's face.

Naruto eyed him thoughtfully, as if contemplating what to do him. After what seemed like ages, Naruto spoke.

"Now, you're going to explain to me nice and slow what's going on here."

So Masaru wove the same yarn he used on Kakashi. Almost like a skilled actor, he explained the afterlife fluidly, attempting to buy as much time as possible.

"So I'm a Hollow?"

Masaru nodded.

"And Hollows eat humans?"

Masaru nodded.

"And Shinigami from this Soul Society place come here to kill Hollows?"

Masaru nodded again.

"Okay, I think I get the gist of what you're saying, Shinigami." Naruto loosened the grip on the Shinigami, which was probably a foolish move on his part.

Masaru got up suddenly, a look of pure rage on his face.

"Yeah, but its not gonna help you much, Hollow!" he roared, as he used the last of his strength to swing at Naruto. Naruto tightened the grip on Masaru, forcing the Zanpakutou from his hand. It hit the ground with a clang, the last hope of Masaru now gone.

"You monster! Let me go this instant! I'll kill you! I'll kill all Hollows! All Hollows are evil, they must be purif-"

_**SLASH!**_

Masaru's hysterical ramblings were cut short as Naruto took his claws, and effortlessly slit the Shinigami's throat. The head fell limp, hanging in front of the body uselessly.

Naruto loosened his tail, and allowed the corpse to fall to the ground with a heavy thud. He looked at the corpse with a mixture of anger and hunger, the latter of which Naruto didn't expect to come over. An urge was poking at him in the back of his mind, and he couldn't resist.

He tore into the Shinigami's flesh, devouring the body with a surprising amount of relish.

When he finished, Naruto was feeling happier. The taste of that Shinigami was _delicious. _It was like a weight that had followed him since he died had been lifted. Perhaps this afterlife wasn't so bad after all.

He looked back on Konoha, a great hatred being formed in his gut. The villagers and Danzou. Even his former friends were on there for their support of Danzou's decision. But first, there was one person who trumped all of them. Konoha could wait for the time being; it wasn't going anywhere. But, there was one person who was first on his hit list.

* * *

**First Chapter Done. **

**I suppose I should tell you now to expect a ton of character deaths in the future.  
**

**In other news, constructive criticism will be accepted with open arms, but any sort of flaming will be ignored.**


	2. El Obstáculo

"Talking" Normal talking, this will also go for Hollows.

"**Talking**" Entity such as Kyuubi. Kyuubi doesn't play much of a role here, so this won't be used much.

"_Talking_" Thinking or narrating.

Just remembered that I forgot to do that last chapter, so I thought I might as well add it now.

Anyway, here's Chapter 2. Not much to say on this chapter, though it is going to explain some things from the previous chapter.

**Disclaimer**: Kishimoto and Kubo own Naruto and Bleach. Not me.

* * *

Chapter 2: El Obstáculo

_Hollows are former human souls that are said to have lost their hearts to despair, or simply have spent too much time as a Plus, becoming a creature only seen in a twisted nightmare. Most Hollows have an extreme hunger for souls of both Shinigami and humans, to fill the void that was created by their loss of a heart. Before that however, they will often seek out and eat the one they have loved; or... the one they have had a strong obsession with during their lives..._

Tetsu no Kuni. This snow-covered country is considered the most secure place in the ninja world, as it has remained neutral for all of the Shinobi World Wars. It is here that the meeting place of the strongest Shinobi in the world, the five Kages, takes place. Today, there would be two main threats that would enter this place. The first, comprising of Akatsuki, would cause quite the uproar, specifically due to the stunt of Uchiha Sasuke and his team, as well as the declaration of a Fourth Shinobi World War. The second would continue to go completely unknown.

A perpetual cold inhabited the country, making for an extremely fierce climate. The biting cold made the wilderness of the country a bleak, depressing wasteland where life could be snuffed out in an instant. Not that that's the case for one particular Hollow.

A strange mountain, looking like three wolf heads loomed overhead. Every ninja currently in the country was congregating to this spot. This was Tetsu no Kuni. Naruto himself was also heading towards this spot, his bestial body going unnoticed by the shinobi. Ever since he had killed that Shinigami, his hunger had increased. But no, not hunger for just any soul. To fill the void in his heart, he must devour this particular soul without fail.

Naruto snarled. He was close. Something Naruto had noticed over the past few days was his subconscious ability to roughly sense a person's "aura", as he called it. Of course, Naruto didn't know the formal name for it just yet, nor was it as concentrated as one would like it to be. However, he did manage to pick out seven different reiatsu signatures. Although not nearly as strong as that Shinigami's, they stood out as stronger than the rest of the people present. For a human, there were only a select few that had this much spiritual pressure, so Naruto was sure that his target was one of them.

Going from the looks of things, it seemed that there was a large conflict going on at the summit of this mountain. He felt one of the auras flee, the others too busy with fighting to notice. His tail bristled, they all seemed very tasty at the moment; but there was only one that really mattered.

The fleeing aura was getting farther away by the time Naruto reached the base of the mountain. The quadrupedal Hollow raised a paw up, and sank it into the face of the rock. It yielded surprisingly easily under the razor-sharp claws, and Naruto was able to haul himself smoothly up the mountain, using all four of his claws as leverage.

And so, today was the day that a Hollow snuck effortlessly into the Tetsu no Kuni.

* * *

Whiel Naruto was sneaking into the Kage meeting, a group of five Shinigami were standing over the mutilated corpse of Hosokaya Masaru, scruntinizing their dead comrade carefully. Like Masaru, they were from the 10th Division, even though their experience far outweighed the dead new recruit.

Around a week ago, Masaru had been dispatched to the real world to perform Konsou on the souls that were killed during Pain's attack, something that most of the members of the 10th Division were against. This particular group of Shinigami were among them.

Around five days after Masaru's trip to the real world, the 10th Division discovered via Hell Butterfly that he had been killed by a Hollow. Masaru may have been a new recruit, but even he shouldn't have been killed by a Hollow that was barely an hour old.

The leader, a man with black hair pulled into a rat tail, stood at the front. He squatted down low, looking at the lacerations and torn flesh that adorned Masaru's body.

"Looks like the Hollow really did a number on him. It's not surprising that he would fall in battle; that was the exact reason why we were so against him coming to the real world."

One of the Shinigami, a brown-haired one to the right of him, piped up. "But, considering the sloppy way the Hollow ate him, it seemed that it wasn't even an hour old at the time."

The leader nodded his agreement. "That certainly seems to be the case. It's probably because of the location. Let's face it, everyone here is prepped for combat. We're lucky that a Hollow hasn't come out of this place in a long time."

Two of the Shinigami looked at each other, their perturbed expressions enough to convey what they were thinking. One of them was brave enough to voice his opinion.

"What does this mean?"

"One of two things. Either, Masaru was too weak to kill this fresh hollow, something I deem unlikely. Or we've got ourselves a potentially dangerous Hollow on our hands," the leader stated grimly.

The Shinigami tensed. Never had they been so troubled before on a mission...

* * *

It looked like he was too late. The Kage summit was in shambles. Many people, both samurai and ninja alike, lay dead on the ground from the attack. However, the Kaze, Mizu, Tsuchi, and Raikages were still up and standing. They appeared to surveying the area.

Naruto scowled, out of the seven heavy auras previously here, his target was not one of the four that remained.

He slashed at a nearby pile of rubble in frustration, making the four Kages look at it in confusion. He was beginning to get impatient. The Hollow let out a deep breath. He needed to be calm if he ever wanted to succeed.

Naruto opened up his senses again. Two of the three remaining auras were moving rapidly away from the summit, one appearing to chase after the other. The last one seemed to be at a standstill farther from here.

Naruto's decision was obvious. There was a greater chance of finding his target in the two moving auras.

Some distance away, the auras that were Sasuke and Danzou had stopped to duke it out in a battle of Sharingan, with Sasuke struggling with Danzou's Izanagi. However, Danzou currently only had five Sharingan eyes left on his body, the Izanagi causing most of them to shut.

"Kuchiyose no Jutsu!" A giant puff of smoke emerged from the jutsu, before revealing an extremely large tapir-like animal, the Baku (2), which conpensated for the loss of Sharingans.

The large chimera opened its maw, and proceeded to suck in a huge amount of air, taking various debris with it. Danzou used this opportunity to Shunshin behind Sasuke, who was disoriented from the attack.

"Fuuton: Shinku Renpa(3)!" Danzou opened his mouth, and expelled a dozen wind blades, which plowed into Sasuke's Susanoo, causing it to bend back.

However, while Danzou was dealing with Susanoo, Sasuke had taken the opportunity to send a fireball straight into the Baku's mouth.

* * *

Naruto was starting to get excited. His instincts as a Hollow were telling him that a great battle was taking place up ahead. He smirked, even if it looked more like a sneer than a smirk. He would likely devour the both of them, even if one of them wasn't his target.

It wasn't long now. He could see them up ahead. The old fool who was named the Sixth Hokage was one of them, he noticed, and the other was...

Naruto stopped. A feeling of intense euphoria filled him, and he lost what little self-control he had left...

* * *

The battle was over. Sasuke had used a weak Genjutsu to trick Danzou, who now lay on the ground, all of the Sharingan eyes on his arm closed.

Sasuke stood over him, glaring at him hatefully. "This is a battle of eyes. Don't mess with the Uchiha," declared Sasuke. Sasuke glared deeper, but after a few seconds an oppressive force drew Sasuke's attention from Danzou, and a hissing noise sounded in his ear.

"Don't mess with the Uchihas?" A deep mocking voice resonated throughout the entire area. As the voice said that, Sasuke turned around so fast it looked like his neck would snap. Madara and the fallen Danzou had noticed it too, yet Karin just stood around, an ignorant look on her face.

"Sorry Sasuke, but it looks like this time... I'm going to have to mess with the Uchihas." The voice called out again.

This statement only served to make Sasuke even angrier. "Who are you? Show yourself!" Sasuke immediately regretted his outburst. For the... thing... did in fact, show itself.

It was a blur at first, and Sasuke had to strain to see it, even with his Sharingan. But, the longer he looked at it, the clearer a shape formed.

It was eight feet from head to tail, and vaguely resembled a fox. But it more accurately represented a sick, twisted nightmare of a creature. It seemed to be just standing over there, hunched slightly as it faced their direction. Its soulless black and yellow eyes peered at Sasuke in particular. The targeted human suppressed a shudder at the sight of the thing, but he held his ground.

He tensed, lowering himself into his standard Taijutsu stance. It had been a long time since anything had ever made him this nervous.

"That Sharingan of yours seems to be the reason you can see me," the creature mused. A thoughtful look set itself upon its face. "But that's fine, this will make it far more satisfying when I eat you." A malicious grin replaced the thoughtful look.

Sasuke's eye widened. That last statement had taken creepy to a whole new level. "Eat... me?" he asked.

"That's right, Sasuke, eat you. You, the one who I've been hunting for quite some time now. But. . . now's not the time to be talking. I've been waiting for this moment forever,"

At this point in time, Sasuke had had quite enough of this creature's nonsense. It was just spouting out garbage, but how did it know whether it was _capable _of eating him? Snapping out of his trance, he rushed towards the Hollow in order to find out.

Naruto grinned at the approach. To a human, it was an insanely high level Taijutsu. But to a Hollow, it was nothing special, and nothing he couldn't avoid.

Sasuke's punch snapped forward, his right fist aiming for the Hollow's strange mask. Naruto just stood there, taking the blow head on. Sasuke felt his hand make contact with a particularly hard material, and it didn't even feel like he caused any damage. Naruto's thick skin pulled through for him, as it easily absorbed the force of the impact.

The Hollow then shot out his left claw, catching Sasuke around the neck. His tail shot up like a snake, and he slammed it into the Uchiha, sending him flying through the air. As Sasuke was falling, Naruto jumped into the air, grabbed his head, and slammed him point-blank into a nearby rock.

"Kawarimi," Naruto hissed, as nothing remained but a heavily splintered log. The thought of that annoying jutsu made his blood boil. Whatever the case, Sasuke had barely escaped his assault. When he re-appeared, he still looked a little ragged.

"You know Sasuke, I always thought you would put up more of a fight." Sasuke jumped at the creature's usage of his name, and he voiced his shock quite soundly.

"How do you know my name?" he asked.

"Oh, I'm hurt Sasuke. Here's a hint. Who's the one who's been hunting after you for the past three years, dattebayo," said Naruto in a mocking voice. The last word was purposely altered so it sounded just like Naruto as a twelve-year old.

Sasuke's eyes widened. "N-Naruto?"

"On the mark."

"W-What the hell happened to you?"

Naruto sighed. "Oh the usual. Fighting Akatsuki, dying, having my friends betray me, having that old scumbag over there experiment on my corpse."

The Hollow took the time to glare over at the wounded Danzou. The man seemed at a loss for words in front of this monstrosity.

"Y-You..."

"Save it, Danzou. I'll deal with you in due time. But first..." he glanced back at Sasuke. "I have to deal with my biggest mistake."

By now, Sasuke was ready for Round Two. "Fine then, Naruto. We shall settle things here." Despite his exhausted state, he activated the Mangekyou Sharingan. "And I will show you not to mess with the Uchihas,"

At that point, all hell broke loose.

Madara, for all this time, had never taken any action throughout this entire ordeal. On one hand, he was perturbed by the appearance of this strange creature, but because of all his great experience and age, remained relatively calm throughout the situation.

What really got him though, was the fact that this thing was the newly deceased Kyuubi Jinchuuriki. He didn't know what the hell had happened, but apparently he could only see it through the use of his Sharingan. That would explain why the girl over there didn't know what was going on.

The death of the boy had come as a large shock to the elder Uchiha. He had trusted Nagato to be able to bring him back alive. When the fake Akatsuki leader showed his face again, he informed Madara that the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki had died. That threw one hell of a wrench in his plans.

He had had to ignore that for the time being; he'd deal with that problem when the time came. So, he went on ahead with his plan to infiltrate the Kage summit. But, as it turns out; the Kyuubi boy was much bigger of a surprise than he thought. The Akatsuki leader turned his attention back to Sasuke. Things were getting bad...

He was getting worn down. Everything he tried was being shrugged off like it was nothing. He knew that the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki had changed into a monster, but _this_ much of a power difference was absurd.

"Amaterasu!" Sasuke screamed, trying a new technique. He bled profusely from the Mangekyou, but black flames did indeed sprout up around the area, including Naruto.

The Amaterasu flames. . . capable of burning through anything. No opponent could survive this technique... at least, no _human_ opponent.

The flames were indeed on Naruto, but seeing as they were made from chakra, _not _reiatsu; they had no effect on the Hollow's tough skin. Naruto was able to shrug off the flames like they were nothing.

"_This _is the so-called Amaterasu?" said Naruto mockingly. "I _must _say Sasuke, I'm disappointed. I _thought_ you were stronger than this."

A flare of rage customary to Sasuke bubbled up inside him. "Shut up, Naruto! I am stronger than you, and always have been! Who's the one who's failed to catch me up until now!"

Sasuke glared up into the currently apathetic yellow eyes of Naruto, who started to notice the real world fading, and an illusionary world forming.

It was a very strange world. The normal laws of physics didn't seem to apply here. Everything was a different color than what it should've been. A sinister chuckle reverberated throughout the entire world.

"Finally... I'm able to achieve Tsukuyomi."

"You should be grateful Naruto... since you're the first opponent I've ever fully used this on."

From the floor, a despicable liquid emerged. It oozed out of the illusionary ground at a rate slower than that of molasses. Pretty soon, a small puddle had formed, which began to slowly take a human shape. As it was happening, more and more puddles began appearing all over the illusion, creating dozens of silhouettes.

Sasuke's Tsukuyomi was different than that of Itachi's. For one thing, while Itachi's exuded a cold, apathetic aura, Sasuke's created a malicious aura. One that wanted to cause their victim to go through as much pain as inhumanely possible.

The illusions of Sasuke creeped slowly towards Naruto, whose large frame was unmoving. This unnerved the real Sasuke slightly; Naruto didn't seem to be frozen in fear or shock. He just seemed to be unmoving.

* * *

Naruto wanted nothing more than to grin at the moment Sasuke cast his Genjutsu. He restrained himself, however, as that would give him away. The hollow didn't want that. No, not at all. He was a predator, and one who liked to mess with his prey, making them think that they had any chance at all of victory. However, he did not truly know why the Genjutsu was not affecting him.

Indeed, if you looked from Naruto's perspective, all you would see is the last Uchiha do some silly looking impressions, and not really looking that intimidating at all. Especially to an eight-foot tall monster.

In truth, though, the way Genjutsu works is that it attacks the chakra flow in the brain, causing the victim's senses to be distorted into the various images that the Genjutsu provides. Naruto, who is dead, has no chakra, and thus; there is no way for him to be manipulated.

Nonetheless, Sasuke thought that his target was under Genjutsu, and began to move forward. Why waste the chance to finish off his opponent while he was distracted? Sasuke reached behind his back and pulled out his Kusanagi, and smoothly yet cautiously approached the Hollow.

Naruto resisted the urge to facepalm. He had now figured it out. The Uchiha apparently had tried a Genjutsu, but something was making it so it was ineffective. Sasuke had confidence in his Genjutsu though, seeing as the Uchiha had just rushed him at point-blank. But still, why waste this opportunity?

The cunning Hollow held his face down, feigning some kind of torture. He emitted various levels of screams and spasms, giving his opponent the impression that the Genjutsu was effective. The Uchiha relished in this, fully convinced of his success.

"Pathetic. With all that talk earlier, you still fell to an Uchiha's Genjutsu. I guess the dobe's personalities do not change, even if their bodies do."

Sasuke walked slowly toward the Hollow, kneeling down when he got there. The Uchiha breathed on Naruto's head. "I'll say it again... Naruto. Don't mess with the Uchiha's." He prepared his sword for an attempt to end the Hollow's life. He did not notice the cunning... the malicious smirk on Naruto's face.

Faster than the eye can see, a large claw shot out and grasped Sasuke's head. Sasuke, having the full belief that his genjutsu was working, was thoroughly unprepared for the assault. The claw slammed his head brutally into the ground.

"You are the arrogant one here, Sasuke. You have so much faith in your little Genjutsu, now don't you? You walked right in front of me without even thinking of using Kawarimi," Naruto said.

Naruto severely tightened his grip on Sasuke's head, causing the Uchiha to scream.

"And that mistake will cost you your life."

Naruto's grin widened, any resemblance of sanity now gone.

"Oh, how I've been waiting for this moment, Sasuke. It's been almost unbearable. But putting that aside, where should I start?" he mulled over, taking glances at Sasuke's head and arms.

Naruto rolled his black eyes almost lazily, but didn't loosen his grip on Sasuke's head.

"Oh, that's right; I wouldn't want to make this too merciful on you, now would I?" he asked rhetorically.

Sasuke said nothing, but his increased breathing would indicate that he was becoming nervous.

Naruto opened his mouth, revealing ludicrously long and sharp canine teeth. He then tore into Sasuke's left arm, devouring everything he could. To Sasuke, it felt like 1000 cold, miniature knives and chainsaws were grinding into his arm at every possible angle, making it total agony. He screamed in severe pain as his arm was reduced to a lump of scattered bone, skin, and sinew.

Naruto looked at his handiwork. He had created a stump out of Sasuke's left arm. The screams were equally satisfying. He looked around, before beginning the same process on Sasuke's other arm.

"How does it feel, Sasuke?" asked Naruto. Sasuke weakly murmured something incoherant. Naruto put his face close to the Uchiha. "What's that, you want more?" Sasuke's eyes widened like saucers.

"Well, I was going to finish it soon." Naruto lied. "But now that I think about it, there's no rush. So I guess I can grant your request."

Naruto flipped the Uchiha from on his back to on his stomach. A maniaical grin set upon his face as he tore into Sasuke's abdominal area. His bloodlust grew as he ate the Uchiha's flesh, though he held himself back from eating anything vital. Sasuke screamed even more. To him, this was one-hundred times worse than the treatment of his arm. In fact, now; Sasuke would be willing to give almost anything to have that back.

Blood gushed from Sasuke's wound in torrents. It was a miracle that he wasn't dead yet. No, not quite a miracle, but a fine precision. Naruto had purposefully left Sasuke's organs alone, instead opting a create just a heavy flesh wound.

Sasuke had now lost the ability to speak. The pain was too great for that. Now, he just wanted it to end. Luckily for him, Naruto was just about to grant him that wish...

Just like before, Naruto lunged his open mouth straight ahead, this time going to Sasuke's head. The skin and muscle was breached immediately underneath the powerful incisors. Naruto gave a push, and his eyes, the precious Sharingan eyes, were mashed and eaten as well.

"_NO! NO!" _were the frantic thoughts of the dying Uchiha. His gave one final scream as Naruto began to devour his brain.

Sasuke was already dead, but Naruto continued to eat the dead Uchiha's brain, savoring the meal. As soon as he was finished devouring the soul, he felt his power begin to grow. His goal. . . his was complete. And it didn't take much effort at all. Now, he could focus on other things. . .

_When the Hollows has finally buried their obsession, two paths will open for it. The first is the more common path. Once burying their obsession, they lose their intelligence, and simply become mindless creatures bent on finding the most powerful souls to devour. They can however, regain their intelligence by spending time with more intelligent Hollows. The second path... creates a much more dangerous Hollow, one that has retained its intelligence. These are the Hollows that ascend to Menos status. They share the desire to eat powerful souls, but they are capable of much more complex things. . . in particular, the ability to hold a grudge. . ._

* * *

Danzou and Madara were simply stunned. Not only had this thing showed up claiming to be the deceased Konoha pariah, he had also brutalized Sasuke. While Madara was lamenting the loss of his newest subordinate, Danzou was starting to get nervous. He had witnessed Sasuke's death, and even he didn't believe that _anything _had that much sheer cruelty. This creature simply reeked of it. There was no way that it was Uzumaki Naruto.

But putting that aside, Danzou was beginning to fear for his life. What made matters worse was that Madara was just sitting off to the side idly, watching the latest development with a curious mixture of shock and intrigue.

Naruto turned to the two old men, his steely gaze falling on Danzou in particular. Without warning, he kicked Sasuke's remains in the air, which landed in front of the injured shinobi.

"You will take _that _back to the village. Tell them publicly about just how painful his death. However, if you tell them just what or who killed him, then you will receive the same treatment as him." He motioned at the dead Uchiha.

"No matter how filthy your soul may taste." Naruto spat out the last part with so much venom that the old Hokage shivered. Danzou was many things, but he was no fool. He knew in an instance that this creature could and would follow up with what he said.

Naruto turned his gaze to Madara. "The same thing applies to you, _Madara," _The elder Uchiha said nothing.

"I've finally kept my promise. . ." he whispered mockingly. In its own bastardized way, he actually sort of had. Even if it meant nothing more than burying his obsession, the promise was fulfilled.

He didn't think it would be _that _easy. He really didn't. Hell, he was almost bored with this turn of events. Turns out the old fool actually went ahead and listened to him. He told Konoha all about the Uchiha's untimely death.

Naruto really wished he had a camera. The look on Sakura's face had been priceless.

But. . . he had finally "kept" his promise. Even in death, it would be a cold day in hell when Naruto ever broke a promise. There was now nothing left in the village to burden him anymore. Which means... that he could finally be able to go all out on the place.

Naruto was currently on the outskirts of the village, looking through the open gates. He sneered; oh, how he hated this place. Apparently, the Uchiha was being mourned by a good portion of the village, as if he was still a hero. But, it wasn't like he could blame them. The majority of the civilians didn't know about Sasuke's plans.

But now was the time for action. He had brought back Sasuke, so now he could make Sakura a sobbing heap of depression before he killed her. Yes... she would be the last to die. First, she was torn from her love, and now she will see the rest of the village fall right in front of her.

Naruto's tails twitched with excitement. This would be fun.

* * *

Naruto wasted no time in his exploit. The Hollow rushed through the ruined streets of Konoha, thoroughly intent on finishing his job. To prove his point, Naruto sank his powerful teeth into the shoulder of the closest villager.

The man screaming in pain, blood gushed from his wound. The villagers around him looked on in shock and confusion as the man was torn limb from limb, and swiftly devoured with no visible source.

They looked around, and when another villager was killed in just the same way, fear overcame their reason.

Panic.

The villagers scattered to and fro in every possible direction, not wanting _whatever_ that had happened to that man to happen to them.

The panic increased as three more villagers were eaten. Shopkeepers jumped out of their stalls and into the crowds, knocking their merchandise everywhere in a blind attempt to escape. Ninjas were jumping onto the scene, trying to quell the panic as well as attempt to subdue the problem.

To Naruto, it was such a beautiful thing. These people would die without even knowing how. And the pathetic ninja would be able to do nothing to stop him!

Naruto reared back and roared with laughter. He had never felt so _alive._ If this was what the afterlife was like he would've died a long time ago! A whoosh of movement drew Naruto's attention away from his feast, and his laughter stopped.

"Whoa, it looks like your having a blast," came an unfamiliar voice, as a few presences stood directly behind Naruto.

There, dressed in their standard black robes, were five Shinigami. A standard patrol unit, if you will, but Naruto was quick to notice the arrogant smirks on all of their faces.

"Shinigami. It seems I can never get enough of you people. That buddy of yours can attest to that."

The leader frowned. "Oh, and what buddy are you talking about?"

Naruto put his hand on his cheek, a gesture oddly out of place in the pandemonium. "Oh, let's see, I think his name was Masaro or Musare, or something like that."

The five Shinigami tensed, the smirks on their faces dropping to be replaced by looks of anger. This was the Hollow that had killed Masaru, as a fresh Hollow. It had been three weeks since that time, so this Hollow may have advanced since then.

Naruto opened his eyes wider as a sick grin spread across his face. "He was _very_ good." The response came as nothing more than a whisper, but it succeeded in putting the Shinigami even more on edge.

One of the Shinigami got bold. "Monster. Die, Hollow scum!" The large, bald Shinigami screamed as he brandished his sword and charged Naruto.

"Idiot! Don't let him get under your skin!" the leader screamed at the berserk Shinigami.

Naruto deftly avoided a sword strike by leaping into the air, and afterwards his tail shot out and attempted to impale the reckless Shinigami. He was alarmed when the Shinigami caught it.

Naruto winced as the Shinigami tightened his grip on the tail.

"What the hell are you doing?"

The Shinigami gave no reply, instead choosing to twirl the tail around his head, which made Naruto spin round and round like a lopsided windmill.

The Shinigami let go of his tail, sending Naruto flying into a makeshift house. The villagers paused for a split-second to stare in confusion at the damage, but soon went back to their pandemonium.

Naruto pushed the rubble off of him and got ready to continue the battle. Another Shinigami appeared in front of him in midair with a slash that Naruto managed to avoid, but not without taking a shallow cut on the torso. Naruto staggered, before following up with a claw swipe, which caught the Shinigami on the face.

"Hisao!"

The brown-haired Shinigami clutched his face. Being slashed by eight inch claws had created a deep enough wound for the relatively fragile Shinigami to be incapacitated for a few minutes. The fox flew towards the wounded Shinigami, attempting to do his trademark impale.

He almost got his hand lopped off by the leader of the Shinigami. He reared back, and noticed that the remaining two Shinigami had joined the fray in an attempt to protect their comrade.

"Five-on-one. Doesn't seem very fair, now does it?" mocked Naruto.

"Shut up, Hollow! We don't have to be fair against the likes of you!" yelled the bald Shinigami.

"Shut your hole, bastard! I wasn't talking to you!" Naruto roared back. He didn't notice that his reiatsu seemed to increase after that, but the rest of the Shinigami certainly did.

Naruto turned to the leader after he was finished berating the bald man.

"You seem stronger than the rest of them. What's your name, Shinigami?"

"20th seat of the 10th Division: Moriguchi Kichirou."

"Interesting, that other Shinigami didn't mention anything about Shinigami ranks. Care to elaborate?"

Kichirou scoffed. "I don't think so. That fool of a new recruit may have been so willing to give out information, but don't think it's the same for me!"

The 20th seat gestured to the remaining two Shinigami, the youngest man and the only female.

"Attack!"

The other two Shinigami rushed at Naruto, providing a distraction for Kichirou. Naruto blocked both Shinigami, but failed to properly react to an incoming Kichirou. He protected his mask in order to minimize the damage, but he was still sent flying back.

The Hollow skidded along the air, coming to a halt 20 feet away. He was then hit with a heavy punch from the bald Shinigami, which sent him flying to Earth, leaving the wounded Hollow in a crater.

He was lying on his back, with Hisao shakily coming in for the killing blow.

"Too naïve!" Naruto shouted, as he shifted to the left, causing Hisao's Zanpakutou to stab into the ground. He whipped his tail around, hitting Hisao in his claw wound.

Giving his opponents no time to react, he quickly grasped Hisao's face and began to squeeze. Hisao, who was still trying to pull his Zanpakutou out of the ground had no chance. He let out a small yell as Naruto tightened his grip.

"Hisao!" yelled the female of the group.

"Let of Hisao, you bastard!" screamed Kichirou, as he desparately attempted another attack. He was too late.

_Crunch._

The four Shinigami looked on as Hisao's head was crushed easily under the Hollow's strong hand. He died instantly as his skull caved in under the pressure, and blood poured from openings in Hisao's head. Naruto shook the blood from his hands.

"A pathetic Shinigami. Am I correct in assuming that he was the weakest one among you?" said Naruto coldly.

The four Shinigami screamed in rage, wanted to pulverize this Hollow into a bloody pulp. The four of them attacked Naruto at the same time, effectively catching the Hollow off-guard. And this time, there was rage fueling their attacks.

Naruto had barely managed to stop a slash from the female Shinigami, when he was attacked by Kichirou. The Hollow winced, and then screamed as he was slashed through the middle. He fell backwards in a heap.

The wound was deep. Naruto huffed and puffed; they had really done a number on him before that, and now they had to throw in a huge slash.

The four Shinigami were now towering over the fallen Hollow, the rage on their faces faded to cold apathy. "You're finished, Hollow," said Kichirou quietly.

Naruto's eyes widened in rage at the statement. "No! I can't let it end here! I have to destroy Konoha! I have to! I won't let little shits like you get in my way!"

The Shinigami took a wary step back. Naruto's rage was allowing his reiatsu to pour out of his body, stronger than before. Rage was fueling him similarly to determination when he was alive. But this time, the combat abilities and maliciousness was greater.

The Hollow rushed the four Shinigami blindly, shrieking in rage. The three non-seated Shinigami barely managed to avoid the attack, but Kichirou got a lucky stab in the ribs to the fox.

Naruto fell to his knees, breathing even heavier than before. He was getting too wounded, and he didn't know how much longer he could keep this up. His sight was getting blurrier, and these Shinigami didn't look like they would let up anytime soon. His "aura" as he called it seemed to resonate with something. He felt a strong urge to touch a claw to the air around him, and he used the last of his strength to do just that.

"_No good. I.. have to.._" his thoughts were interrupted when a strange _thing_ showed up. It stood 3 feet away, very brilliant in the air. Apparently the Shinigami noticed it too.

It opened slowly, serrated shapes flowing upward in a coordinated motion. It was oval-shaped, showing nothing but a dark, swirling void inside.

Despite its strange features, Naruto _yearned _for it. He didn't why he felt this.. this strange sense of kinship for this portal. It was almost like going home after being gone on a long trip. But, it was a kind of different home, a _true_ home. Whatever the case, he simply wanted to plunge himself into it.

Kichirou would have none of this. He readied himself for another slash at Naruto, but... Too late. Naruto had already entered the black void, which closed as soon as Kichirou slashed down upon him.

"Shit! How did that Hollow figure out how to use Garganta so early! Not to mention he was capable of fighting _five_ Shinigami to a standstill, killing one of them. Soul Society may have a heap of trouble thanks to our mistake."

Kichirou kicked the ground in frustration. The other three Shinigami looked at him in sympathy. While they had all liked Hisao, none were as close to him as their 20th seat.

But the words of their leader were coming back to haunt. Would that Hollow really become a huge threat?

They had no idea.

* * *

The black portal deposited Naruto on a sandy desert. White sand and quartz trees littered the place, and in the perpetual night sky, a pure white crescent moon filled the land with its only light source. It was beautiful, in its own way.

Naruto did indeed feel the particular feeling of coming back home, but that thought was overshadowed by those of the Shinigami.

He laid down on the ground sleepily, and punched the sand with his fist. "Fuck! Who do those Shinigami think they are, to get in the way of my revenge!"

"I'll kill them! I'll kill all of them! From now on, every Shinigami I meet is a dead man, no matter who they are!" he exclaimed in a flurry of rage.

Naruto had no idea how much that sentiment was shared throughout the white sand of Hueco Mundo...

* * *

**Well, heres the second Chapter. **

**One more thing, I noticed that in some of my reviews, there seem to be a lot of questions. Now, I'm not going to put up anything like a Q&A, but if you PM me with a question, I'll be more than happy to answer it, provided it's not insulting.**

**Translations and other features**

Tetsu no Kuni: Iron Country

Baku: The Baku is Japanese mythological creature. It is a chimera, but it more closely resembles a tapir. They are said to eat dreams and nightmares.

Fuuton: Shinku Renpa: Wind Release: Vacuum Serial Waves.

Garganta: Throat

Well, that about wraps things up for this Chapter. I'll see you next time in Chapter 3.


	3. Los Sacrificios

Well everyone, here's Chapter 3. I don't want to spoil the story for anyone, but I'm going to be adding some warnings and news beforehand.

One thing I've gotta tell you is that while Naruto is the central character, he will not be the only character getting focus or fights. Even if he gets the most of both of those things, there will be a lot of other characters who will get that too.

Also, I've gotta give props to Ubernaut for his analysis, because he is absolutely right. Hollows can eat souls ONLY when they've already separated the soul from the body. However, I'm not going to go back and change that in previous chapters, but I will take that into consideration in future chapters.

**Disclaimer: **No.

* * *

Chapter 3: Los Sacrificios

He laid there for a while, feeling nothing but the cool sand on his body as it moved about its path. His mustard-yellow eyes were unfocused, instead simply pointed down at the ground, looking at nothing. It would seem like he was asleep, or even dead.

But Naruto Uzumaki was very much awake and alive. His previous rage for the Shinigami had subsided, and now he was left with nothing but confusion. Despite his joy on coming to this place, he still had no idea where he was or what he would do with himself and his vengeance now.

A sharp jolt of pain shot through his body, and he looked down at the wound inflicted from the Shinigami and frowned. It wouldn't do to have sand get in the wound. He stretched his legs and tail before pulling himself upright, looking at the crescent moon overhead. It was a strange moon; in that it seemed almost unnatural.

Underneath the moon, there was an extremely tall sand dune, easily dwarfing the others in the vicinity. The top of the dune would be a perfect place to get a better perspective on this entire place.

He approached the dune, and sank his sharp claws into the confines of the sand. Little bits of sand fell off, but it seemed stable enough to climb. Gently, he placed his other limbs inside before beginning his ascent.

The sand dune was about four-hundred feet in height, and it didn't take Naruto very much time to finish scaling it, his sharp claws and ninja background being of remarkable help.

As he reached the top, he thought he noticed some kind of strange peculiarity way off in the distance, but he quickly brushed it off as his wound began to flare up again.

"_Wow, what a view,_" the Hollow thought as he looked over the white desert. It's sheer magnitude appalled him. There was nothing but sand for as far as the eye could see. Quartz trees littered the entire landscape, and he vaguely spotted one or two more Hollows off in the far distance, their appearance incredibly different from his own. He turned around to view a similar scene from behind.

It was such a surreal scene that the desert seemed like it had a life of its own. The sand undulated up and down, side to side, and made choices on where to go. Unpredictable they were, but life itself was unpredictable.

Naruto knew at that moment that his life would be governed by the desert. Things that happen, and people that he will meet are all an account of the desert's will. But if the desert governed his life, then the moon governed the desert's. It provided dim light to the desert, and allowed it to be in existence in the first place.

Naruto felt a strange sense of curiosity come over him. He felt that there was something _more _to this place. Something _beyond_ the sand. His mind was just screaming at him to go find out what it was.

Without thinking, he jumped off of the sand dune, not harmed in the slightest from the fall. He landed five feet next to a quartz tree, before one of his feet got stuck in something...

It was like the sand had started to collapse on itself, the pressure forming a concave structure. Then the sand fell entirely, leaving a sort of pit that would be used in a pitfall or ant lion pit.

The fox Hollow's eyes widened as gravity performed it's dirty work. He grasped on to a branch of the tree, but it was to no avail. The branch snapped off as if it was a twig. He fell forward, and he tried to grab onto the sand, only to have run it straight through his fingers. He felt a strange sensation, and realized that his already underground legs were pulling him into the subterranean reaches of the world.

* * *

Below the surface of the sand, in the subterranean Menos forest, several dozen Hollows were duking it out, every one of them attempting to bury its soul by eating fellow Hollow. A distance away from the swarming mass of flesh and mask stood a dozen Gillian, each one milling about in an unruly rhythm reminiscent of their kind.

A small amount of sand fell onto a single Hollow's head, causing it to glance upwards in confusion. This setback gave enough time for another Hollow to sink its teeth into the confused Hollows shoulder.

Then, a small portion of the sand ceiling completely gave way, drawing the attention of the Hollows and even the Gillian.

The sand eventually cleared, and the beings below noticed a small, vexing object falling directly down to the bottom. It disappeared behind a large quartz tree for a moment, before landing about 100 feet away.

The Hollows stared at the new arrival, their previous hunger for each other conveniently forgotten. The distorted figure had risen to its feet, and the dust began to clear.

Before them stood a fox-like Hollow, its animalistic features very prominent and unique, but it was still clearly one of their own. One of the bolder Hollows rushed towards the newcomer, clearly enticed by the exceptional power that it was giving off.

Naruto, meanwhile, was still disoriented from the sudden fall. He barely had time to register the large, gaping maw that attempted to bite into him.

He clumsily avoided the attack, taking time to glare as he did. He then followed up with a well-placed kick, which easily sent the Hollow flying back. The sudden attack of the Hollow caused the others to continue with what they were doing; eat each other.

"_What are they doing?_" he thought, as he watched the others devour each other in a frenzy. While Naruto was thinking, the Hollow attacking him took time to swing one of its wiry limbs at him. The obnoxious limb missed, and went crashing into the rock ground.

Before the Hollow could retract it, it was stepped on by one of Naruto's claws, which pinned it straight into the ground. He eyed the tentacle, an unreadable look in his black eyes. Then, he sank his teeth into the joint, before ripping it clean off.

He didn't know why he was compelled to do it. He supposed it was just his Hollow instincts. Nevertheless, his sharp teeth ripped off the tentacle limb with serious gusto.

"_It's good,_" thought Naruto as he began to eat the detached tentacle. Green blood dribbled from his mouth, making him look all the more menacing.

Naruto was an intelligent Hollow; there was no doubt about that. However, that Hollow was almost as satisfying as a Shinigami. Even an intelligent Hollow like him wouldn't be able to resist his natural Hollow instincts.

He grinned ferally, and burst forth into the fray with unnatural speed, biting and tearing anything that got in his way in an attempt to satiate himself.

* * *

Naruto stumbled into his cave, clutching the side wound he recieved from a particularly nasty Hollow. He had found the cave very high up on the subterranean cliffs of the Menos Forest, and it was nearly unreachable to those who didn't know the way.

It had been a few weeks time since his descent into the forest, and the Hollow had been trying to balance escaping, revenge, and hunger. So far, it hadn't gone too well, as there weren't that many exits back to the surface it would seem. He had traveled out many miles but didn't come across something that even looked like it would function as an exit.

The Hollow turned around and looked across the horizon. He avoided that place, as that was where the Adjuchas hid.

Naruto had gained some knowledge of the world with every non-mindless Hollow he ate. The underground of Hueco Mundo was where the generally weak Hollows lurked. Even the Adjuchas here were low-level. So, if he was to find a way to destroy Konoha and fight the Shinigami; it would have to be on the surface.

Naruto growled. Even if the Adjuchas were low-level, they were still Adjuchas. It would be best not to cross them.

He looked down. Things seemed to be going on normally. He had recently seen a group of Hollows become a Gillian, and frankly it both excited him and worried him. On one hand, the amount of power gained was beautifully enticing. On the other hand, the thought of becoming mindless wasn't very appealing.

He quietly mused on this topic, before he saw it. A Garganta had formed on the forest floor, and a small group of Hollows came spewing out of it. They seemed to be running from something.

Naruto looked at them with one eye, almost dismissing the entire thing. But that was before twenty or thirty Shinigami also came out of the Garganta, apparently in pursuit of the escaping Hollows. Naruto turned his full attention to them as he saw one of the Shinigami gut a random Hollow.

All of the Hollows stopped, each one looking at their disappearing brethren. In a heartbeat, there were now five more who joined the first one, none of them able to register what happened before it was too late.

Then the carnage broke loose. The Hollows were now completely focused on the Shinigami, each one wanting to consume them.

Naruto looked on in anger. This was such a blatant disregard for his species. Yes, Hollows ate humans, Shinigami, and each other, but Naruto knew that every Hollow accepted this as a part of life. The food chain, if you will.

He felt his hatred for the Shinigami rise a notch. Here were these beings, who fancied themselves divine protectors to humans. They also considered it their birthright to slaughter the Hollow species en masse. They didn't understand that this was the way things worked. Their protocol was just... _unnatural._

With a roar, the fox leaped from his cave, eager to spill some Shinigami blood. He fell nearly 200 feet, which would've killed a human, but thankfully he was not one of those. After landing, he noticed that the current Hollows were losing very easily. Occasionally, one of the stronger Hollows would overwhelm and kill a Shinigami, but they were still being pushed back.

He slipped into the battle carefully and gutted one Shinigami before devouring it. He was about to go for a second one before his claws were stopped by a Zanpakutou.

The sharp objects met with a clang, and neither combatant was able to get the advantage. Naruto stepped back, and began to carefully scrutinize his opponent. He was a Shinigami of average height, with spiky burgundy hair. He held a serious frown, though not one that was unfriendly or scornful.

Unknown to him, the Shinigami's name was Kano Ashido. He wasn't as battle hardened as he would be in years to come, nor did he have the same battle experience and abilities. But to say he wasn't the strongest of the group would be insulting to him. He was the most skilled with the Zanpakutou, even if he never managed to unlock Shikai. His Kidou also trumped almost everyone in the group, save for a few specialists.

Ashido didn't spare a word, preferring not to converse with Hollows. Naruto was going to say something, but was cut off by Ashido's sudden attack.

Naruto barely had enough time to block with his tail, but Ashido kept on pressing. He had virtually no defense, but the strength and erratic fighting style more than made up for it.

The Hollow pulled off from Ashido's strikes and reappeared to the left side of him. He attempted to bite the Shinigami, but Ashido went for a thrust straight through the Hollow's mouth. It was ineffective though, as Naruto bit down on the blade, stopping its assault.

The Shinigami tried to pull it free, a grunt of frustration on his face. Naruto's jaw was just too strong for him to actually have any success. The Hollow, meanwhile, began looking around himself for a short time.

Another Hollow had drilled through a Shinigami to the left of him, and yet Ashido kept up a calm facade. Naruto pulled the sword out of his mouth, and blocked the predictable counterattack with his tail. Ashido put some distance between himself and his opponent, feeling that direct combat would be useless.

The fox leered at the unagitated face of his adversary. "You Shinigami don't care much for your comrades, do you?" he mocked.

Ashido glared at the fox, finally letting some exploitable emotion onto his face.

"And what would you know about Shinigami camaraderie, _Hollow?" _he asked.

"Oh, I know plenty about it, Shinigami. Your pathetic trust in your comrades and in your own abilities make most of you very arrogant. I'm very sure that most of the Shinigami here think you would clean up all the Hollows here, go home..."

Naruto paused in his speech as he saw a Hollow puncture another Shinigami. He closed one eye and smiled sadistically.

"And call it a day," he finished.

If the sounds and sights of fighting did not exist at the moment, you could practically fell the tension between the two reverberate throughout the area.

Ashido felt his ire rising. How dare this... _scum_ casually accuse any one of his friends of that when he didn't even know the situation.

Naruto let no expression come onto his masked face. Whether he realized Ashido's cold anger or not, he continued on as if nothing was happening.

"And it's not just trust and arrogance. Everyone in your species carries a sort of condemnation for anyone who is different than you. You claim to be the protectors of humans but you hold them in the same disregard you hold for us."

A crease appeared on Ashido's forehead.

"And that is why you actively pursue Hollows. Your arrogance in your abilities and your condemnation of our species is what fuels stunts like this."

Ashido began to growl.

"You have no hope of defeating us, _Shinigami_. Let me make this very clear. Every single one of you will be slaughtered here. We will dance on your graves. It's what idiots like you deserve for complete stupidity."

That did it. Ashido snapped. He charged at the Hollow, what little defense he had abandoned. The Hollow just stood there, relishing in the misery that he had caused to the wretched Shinigami.

Naruto slowly relaxed himself into a stance, ready to take the Shinigami head-on. He was a little surprised when the berserk Ashido nearly managed to break through his guard. Ashido's attacks had strength, but they also had experience far more than any other Shinigami he had faced.

He managed to block over a dozen sword strikes with his tail, taking small scratches on it as he did. But one attack slipped through his guard, and caught the Hollow on the hip.

Naruto hissed out in pain, but was already on his feet. He went towards the left side of Ashido, hoping to use that as a feint.

Ashido switched his position to avoid Naruto, but that was exactly what the Hollow was hoping for.

Naruto's strong paw managed to catch Ashido's right arm and the Zanpakutou that was holding it. He thrust the limb out to the side, jolting the rest of the Shinigami.

But Ashido was ready for this.

He took his free hand and extending his middle and index finger, aiming them directly at the Hollow. It was a slow motion on his part, almost lazy, but it could instill fear in the hearts of many opponents.

"_Shi-"_

"Hadou #4: Byakurai(2)."

Naruto avoided the brunt of the lightning bolt by releasing Ashido, but his right shoulder was singed from the attack. He kneeled down momentarily, instinctively clutching the wound.

It turned out to be a bad mistake on his part. The Shinigami had recovered the use of his right arm, and was now going in for the finishing blow.

But it was of no use as Naruto's tail shot out and caught him on the left side. Ashido hit the ground with a hard thud, though he was fortunately spared of any broken bones.

He shakily got to his feet. The Hollow was now sporting a wide grin on his face, like nothing had happened at all. He glared at the trickster. He could see it now. He had purposely left himself open so he could go for that tail strike.

He had to admit, it was his first time that he had fought a Hollow that used such underhanded tactics. Usually Hollows were just attack, eat, repeat. But this one had crossed all boundaries he had had for expectations.

He looked around him. There were not that many Shinigami dead, though even he knew that staying here long enough would cause all of them to die. Even if their mission was to eliminate the Hollow menace; finding suitable shelter should be their top priority.

Ashido's Hollow opponent sneered. This fight was dragging out for too long. He had a plan to upkeep, and couldn't hold it if this continued to progress.

He looked over to his right, seeing a particularly large Hollow fighting a short Shinigami. Naruto grinned to himself as he saw an opportunity arise. He rushed over to the fighting pair, which left Ashido temporarily stunned.

Speaking of the fighting pair, both of them now noticed the fox Hollow coming at them. The short Shinigami braced himself for impact, inadvertently leaving himself open to attack from the other Hollow.

The Shinigami was surprised as the fox Hollow went not for him, but for the Hollow that he was currently fighting. The fox completely passed him up, knocking the other Hollow away with a single strike.

The short Shinigami looked up to see the face of his best friend, Ashido, who now had a look a realization on his face at the new individual.

Their reunion was cut short as a strong claw gripped the back of his robes, lofting him upwards. The Hollow wrapped his front paw around the Shinigami's neck, claws poised to strike at any moment.

A bead of sweat ran down the Shinigami's face as he grew nervous. He was already injured, so there was no way he could've fought off the Hollow even before it had grabbed him.

He looked over and saw Ashido gripping his Zanpakutou until his knuckles turned white. He was clearly contemplating the situation at hand.

Then he felt the Hollow's disgusting hot breath wash over his entire soul. It sent shivers down his spine, and that was not something that could be easily done.

When Naruto spoke, it was addressed not to the captured Shinigami, but to Ashido. "Drop your Zanpakutou, or this one dies," he stated simply, digging his claws into the victim's neck for emphasis.

Both Shinigami's eyes widened. A hostage situation? They were obviously thinking that something as savage and primitive as a Hollow would ever think up something like that.

"A-Ashido, f-forget about me. J-Just kill this H-Hollow!" the captured Shinigami said weakly. The claws were clearly getting to him.

"What are you saying? You know I can't do that!" shouted the redhead. His expression was contradictory to his resolve, as he openly looked indecisive.

"You have thirty seconds," said Naruto, butting in on their little conversation.

"I-" Ashido began.

"Fifteen seconds."

Ashido raised his Zanpakutou.

"Ten seconds."

He lifted it up.

"Five seconds."

And he prepared to. . .

"Three."

"Two."

"On-"

_Clang._

Ashido's Zanpakutou fell to the ground with a deafening clang. His best friend was now unconscious, but the wide grin on Naruto's face just got wider.

"Kick it away," he demanded.

Ashido did just what he was told. The deadly blade now lay useless 20 feet away from the fighters, and Naruto dropped Ashido's friend roughly.

Before anyone could react, Naruto was on Ashido himself. The Shinigami attempted to block, but without his Zanpakutou it wouldn't do any good.

Naruto and Ashido slid across the ground, digging a trench and lifting up much rock. The Hollow's head was delivering a nasty blow to Ashido.

He completely slammed Ashido into a tree, which made him spew blood in the process. Ashido at this point was barely conscious, and it wouldn't take much more.

The Hollow released his head, allowing Ashido to fall a little. But this was not in Ashido's favor, as he was nailed at point-blank from Naruto's tail.

That blow did the trick. The Shinigami was knocked out, and Naruto caught the unconsciousness Shinigami by draping him across his back.

With Ashido on his back, the Hollow began to walk back towards the other Shinigami. He sneered in disgust as he looked at the scrawny Shinigami. He would not be a good meal, even if Ashido would make up for it.

He duly noted the Zanpakutou at the hip, before nudging it away. These Shinigami truly were weak if anything should happen to their Zanpakutou.

None too gently, he hoisted the Shinigami onto his back, claws sinking into the flesh. He looked around and saw that the other Shinigami had retreated away, probably due to the Hollow's superior numbers.

And speaking of the Hollows, one of them nearly just took a huge chunk out of both Naruto and Ashido. The intelligent Hollow jumped back, cursing that his instincts had dulled. His eyes widened as every single Hollow there began to lock on him.

Naruto looked at the Shinigami. They were likely the reason that he was being targeted so much. He cursed his own stupidity. Why the hell didn't he pay better attention to his surroundings? He was a ninja in life, for God's sake!

He avoided another strike from an insect Hollow. He couldn't fight them now, so he would have to simply avoid them. He ran through the line of Hollows, taking quite a few blows, but not allowing any fatal ones to go towards the two Shinigami.

He took them all head-on, plowing through the defense of the weak Hollows, sending several flying into the air. He didn't spare them a second glance as he clumsily leapt onto one of the branches of the trees.

The remaining Hollows stood there stupidly as they watched the small Hollow rocket it's way through the Menos Forest on the treetops, carrying two unconscious Shinigami with it.

* * *

From the high quartz trees of the Menos Forest, you can see everything for miles. The locations of Menos Grande, other Hollow, and Hollow hideouts could be seen. Unfortunately, you had to be a very agile Hollow or have some sort of climbing ability to even think about getting up there. The trees were steep, and the smooth quartz could be slippery at times.

However, Naruto _was _a very agile Hollow. With his size and body structure, he could easily climb the trees of the Menos Forest. The problem was trying to do that with two unconscious Shinigami on his back.

He had nearly fallen a half dozen times, which prompted him to think if he should just abandon the Shinigami. He shook such thoughts out of his head as he prepared to land on a particularly large branch.

He let the two Shinigami fall from his back onto the branch. He looked them over, before adopting his usual look of hatred.

"Ya know, if I didn't need you two, I would've slaughtered the both of you back there." He paused for a moment to glare at Ashido, despite knowing the he couldn't hear him.

"And if I was actually trying to kill you, instead of just trying to knock you out, you wouldn't have lasted a minute in that fight, _Shinigami. _Even if you are the strongest Shinigami I've fought, I'm not exactly the same Hollow I was a month ago._" _

He allowed himself to smile arrogantly at the thought, before resuming his task.

"Unfortunately, I need you two for a very _particular_ task. I'm sure _they _will be very pleased to see you."

He turned away from the two Shinigami to look away at a very dark expanse of the Menos Forest. He glanced back at the Shinigami before smiling very sadistically.

* * *

The dark expanse is somewhat of a forbidden area throughout this sector of the Menos Forest. It wasn't through any sort of law or code. Just an unspoken rule. Even the mindless Hollows instinctively knew to stay away from that place.

The dark hole was like a permanent authority to the denizens of the Menos Forest, and almost every Hollow knew what lurked in there. Going in there was the equivalent of suicide.

Despite this, Naruto looked on defiantly, as if he were ready to challenge this dark mass. Even now he was getting dangerously close to the place. No normal Hollow would dare venture out this far.

It wasn't easy to get here, either. Even though Hollows never went _in_, it didn't stop them from completely crowding around the surface, which made ground entry impossible.

Which is exactly why he had taken to the trees. As luck would have it, the particular branch he was on jutted out severely, forming somewhat of a natural entrance. He situated the two Shinigami on his back again, and squatted down in preparation for a jump. Off the forest floor, a select few Hollows witnessed the fox Hollow leap fearlessly into the abyss. They made a few mindless grunts, almost in fear and admiration. . .

They then saw him drop to the forest floor, making almost a kind of beckoning gesture with his tail. One of the Hollows approached the darkness slowly, as if it were afraid that it would consume him. He reached out a foot and stepped inside.

The fox Hollow smiled ruefully at the success. On their friend's action, the other few Hollows stepped into the darkness, and were soon progressing deeper.

Pretty soon, they were all following the rapidly disappearing figure into the darkness. . .

* * *

It was a quiet atmosphere in the darkness. The only sounds that could be heard were the distant cries of Hollows and the noises of little Hollow animals. But even those noises were drowned out by the moving near-silent form of Naruto.

It was truly unnerving. After being surrounded by nothing but Hollows, seeing an absence of them could be quite startling.

The way twisted and turned, and even the unshakable quartz trees looked warped here. They created obstacles, and Naruto once again jumped into the trees for a better route.

It wasn't long before he reached the center of the expanse. Below, on the forest floor stood an almost beehive-like structure, a monolith in the center that gave an ominous feel. Even the trees, with their unyielding size seemed to avoid it.

Naruto wasn't deterred. He leapt from the tree, falling to the cold, hard ground. He walked up to the side of the structure and placed a paw on it. It was cold, and made of rock. There were numerous holes on it that he could probably squeeze through.

He gripped the outside of ones of the holes, and swung himself through. It looked like he was small enough to fit through.

He crouched at the edge of the tunnel, and that was where he saw _them. _Around 10 Adjuchas, very low-level ones; but not the type to piss off in this area of Hueco Mundo. They were sitting in a circle, huddled around a light the giving off from a bio-luminescent Adjuchas.

They had not noticed his presence yet, his reiatsu weak enough to be overlooked and the light dim enough to hide his position.

They were apparently talking, though he couldn't make out any words. He placed his paw on the rockface, before a very small section broke off and gave. Naruto cursed and hid himself from view, before he gradually lifted up his head to view. Thankfully, they were still talking animately. But then suddenly, a large green Adjuchas appearing in the rock next to him. It aimed a powerful fist at him that he just barely avoided.

He tumbled from the hole, whirling into the center. The other Adjuchas bristled, but otherwise gave no indication that they never knew he was there. He looked at his back, and saw the Shinigami barely remaining in place.

The other Adjuchas were rising to their feet, clearly exciting by their visitor. Naruto watched on as a large, humanoid Adjuchas with a perpetual smiling face took up the front.

"Well everyone, it looks like we've got ourselves a visitor," the Adjuchas cackled with mirth, the others around him copying.

Naruto was started to regret his plan. Trying to fight off a score of Adjuchas who probably wouldn't even give him the time of day wasn't the best idea.

That particular sentiment was confirmed as the green Adjuchas from before came soaring in, throwing a punch that would undoubtedly knock him out and allow the Hollows around to feast on his innards.

Reflexively, his long tail wrapped around the weaker Shinigami, pulling him straight into the line of the Adjucha's fist. The Adjuchas tensed for a moment, then retracted it's fist just before it punched straight through the meat shield.

Naruto grinned. There was no way that the Adjuchas would obliterate their most coveted meal.

"Great Adjuchas, I bring you all a gift," said the normal Hollow, his sarcastic patronizing tone seen through by everyone there.

"Interesting," said the leader as he held back the green Adjuchas. Naruto would bet a pretty penny that his mask's smile got a lot bigger.

"But coming to us deliberately is the smartest thing to do, _little Hollow_. What's stopped us from simply killing you and taking the Shinigami?" the leader asked.

The leader watched on in silent amusement as the Hollow placed the Shinigami on the ground, before situating his fangs right above the torso of the Shinigami, ready to tear into the flesh. The other Adjuchas looked almost offended by this action, but he wasn't perturbed at all.

This Hollow was. . . different. He was intelligent, but that was only part of the equation. His own swarthy eyes stared into Naruto scathing ones and could pick out shrewdness, ruthlessness, and even triumph.

"I think you can figure out what this means." Naruto didn't let his guard down even when he was talking.

"Now, what I want is simply information. If you can give me that, then I'll give you these two Shinigami. And I know how much you want to eat them."

The Adjuchas looked mutinous for a moment, but they weren't willing to give up a chance to eat Shinigami.

"Fine, then. What to do want to know?" asked the leader, his voice holding a tone of resignation.

"First of all, how do I escape the Menos Forest and get back to the surface?"

The Adjuchas around them sniggered, though both Naruto and the leader ignored them.

"The nearest exit is a narrow tunnel around one mile north of here. The thing is, it is located on a high cliff, so unless you can climb the trees, you won't be getting to it."

Naruto nodded, taking time to process the information before asking his next question. "Is there some kind of great power in Hueco Mundo. Maybe an army or a kingdom or something like that?"

The leader Adjuchas was about to speak, but Naruto cut him off.

"Who also hates the Shinigami?"

The Adjuchas in the room burst out laughing, leaving Naruto embarassed but also boiling in rage.

"What's the matter, kid. Ya got a little vendetta against the Shinigami, or what?" jeered one of the other Adjuchas. The tone of sardonic glee was evident in the voice.

"Yeah, I do. What's it to you, huh?" asked Naruto. They all laughed again, insulting Naruto's strength, intelligent, and sanity.

"Okay, okay, settle down," said the leader with a small chuckle. He was clearly amused too by Naruto's proclamation.

"For the record, _little Hollow, _there is something like what you're talking. Hollows from all over go to this place, to become part of this great army. Those that do recieve excellent meals, living standards, and glory. But, you have to be powerful, otherwise they won't accept you at all. Even we only have an extended connection to the place, even though we've tried to make it official many, many times.

"As far as I know of, it's existence is unthreatened in Hueco Mundo. It stands as a great palace that can be seen from hundreds of miles away. And it rules over most of the territory I've explored."

"What's it's name?" asked Naruto.

The Adjuchas grinned.

"Las Noches."

* * *

Well that's the end of Chapter 3. Personally, I found this chapter to be a bit more boring than the last, but I consider this to be more of an introductory chapter. And for those of you are wondering; Naruto will become an Arrancar, but it's not going to be immediate. He's going to be spending quite some time as a Hollow, so just be aware of that.

I'll still answer any questions if you PM me, so if you want to, make sure that you do that.

**Translations and Other Features**

I've decided to switch Naruto's name from the Japanese order of names to the Western order of names. This is simply because Hollows and Arrancar tend to use the Western order. Note that anyone who goes to Soul Society will receive the Japanese order.

Hadou #4: Byakurai: Destructive Art #4: White Lightning.

That's all for this Chapter. Please Review.


	4. La Luciernaga

And Chapter 4 is now up!

Disclaimer: My crystal ball tells me. . . that in the future. . . I still won't own Naruto or Bleach.

* * *

Chapter 4: La Luciérnaga

His ears twitched when those words came from the Adjuchas' mouth. Las Noches. The name was strangely poetic in a way. Las. Noches. The way it rolled off the tongue in the smoothest manner was both beautiful... and intimidating. Whoever came up with it had great naming sense.

When he heard the Adjuchas finish talking, Naruto never took his eyes off the leading Adjuchas, or his mouth off the flesh of the Shinigami. To do so would be suicide, because he knew they would pounce the second he did. The leading Adjuchas stood there reluctantly, a forced smile on his face. The fox Hollow was glaring at him, and the expression on his face conveyed that he could get defensive.

The dim light of the hive didn't give away the leader's full expression, but it was probably one of barely contained anxiousness. A fine meal was right in front of him, and if he didn't play his cards right, it could be taken away from him. The Hollow did not want to answer any more questions, and simply wanted to get on with the meal.

"Where can I find this "Las Noches"?" asked Naruto, his voice morphing to a practical, calculating tone which was in contrast to his normal, psychotic one. There was a faint tone of nervousness present, judging from the way his voice cracked slightly.

The Adjuchas paused for a moment, as if he were debating to answer the question, or simply attack instead. The fox Hollow was no match for him, but he could very well finish off the Shinigami before he died.

The other Adjuchas were now chanting dumbly, which was grating on the mind. He would have to decide quickly, lest he wait and carelessly make the wrong decision. With a strained voice, he finally said,

"Once you get back to the surface, walk around ten miles to the east of here. At that point, the grand palace of Las Noches should come into view. You'll know it when you see it. It has a domed roof and four tall pillars flanking it."

Naruto nodded slowly, not really caring if they were lying or not. If he was, then he would simply find someone else to fulfill his needs. His confidence in getting away safely didn't waver in the slightest.

The Menos were still eyeing the two Shinigami that he was keeping hostage. He had no more questions, those could be saved for when he arrived at Las Noches, but that didn't mean he could casually release the prey in front of ten hungry Adjuchas, without getting caught in the crossfire.

So he defiantly kept his perpetual glare on the leading Adjuchas. He couldn't just abruptly walk away from the Shinigami, as doing so would likely startle them. He would have to do it slowly and subtly, all the while making sure that he kept his distance.

In a slow yet smooth motion, Naruto panned his eyes to the left, leaving the gaze of the leader Adjuchas while still keeping a close eye on the Hollow's actions.

He watched all of the Adjucha's carefully, and after what seemed like an eternity, he stepped away from the fallen Shinigami and closed his mouth.

The effect was instantaneous. Once Naruto's jagged teeth were out of the equation, the Hollows flew into action. All rationale was forgotten as the Adjucha's clambered over their comrades.

The leader got the first bite. Once Naruto had backed away, the large Adjuchas spasmed forward at the Shinigami in a split second. He didn't hesitate, and tore through the skin and sinew of the smaller Shinigami.

The other Adjuchas had arrived, eager to get their own shot at the food. Every one of them fought its way to the front of the line, ripping off pieces of flesh if need be. One of the larger Adjuchas tore into the chest cavity of Ashido, while the leader dined on the abundant muscle of the smaller Shinigami. Both of the unconscious Shinigami never woke up, as they were killed instantly by the gruesome deeds of the Hollows.

Blood spurted from the carcasses, drenching their Hollow masks with the fluid.

Limbs were ripped cruelly from bodies, leaving with a disturbing tearing noise. The muscle gave way to reveal the internal organs, which were also devoured without hesitation. Even the bones were eaten away by the Adjuchas, being just as nourishing to Hollows as the rest of the body.

The leader, being the most capable of controlling his hunger, kept out a watchful eye during the entire meal. The fox Hollow was attempting to sneak away during the feast, and if anything; he was doing fairly successful, having eluded the attention of nearly every Adjuchas.

Except him, of course...

* * *

Naruto stumbled through one of the holes in the rock, hoping to get away before the Adjuchas turned their attention on him. He had seen the way they ate, and that had personally surprised him. Not the viciousness mind, but the way they seemed to lose all semblance of control once food was in the area.

The tunnel he was crawling through wasn't very long, only about twenty feet in length. Hopefully, he could quickly leave the Adjuchas' nest and escape into the darkness before they finished their meal. And if that didn't work. . . well, he just hoped that the backup plan would.

Desperately, he pulled himself along, uncaring that the rough surface of the rock was making his skin raw. The old life over limb saying would've been perfect for the situation.

As he neared the exit, he felt the sense of relief course through his body. The outside world was becoming more vivid. At least as vivid as it could in this darkness.

He was just about to reach the exit when he felt a strong blow hit his backside, rocketing him forward out of the hole. He skidded along the ground, friction causing even more wounds for the poor Hollow. He had landed a good distance away from the Adjuchas hive, but was still a ways away from the total darkness of the abyss.

The injured Hollow struggled to his feet, coughing a few times as he did. Blood trickled down from his forehead and flowed into his angry eyes, and Naruto was barely able to see what was in front of him.

The dust had gathered into the air, initially creating little more than a distorted, hazy figure around twenty-five feet away. Then the dust began to clear, and Naruto felt that both of his offerings had been a waste of time.

Standing across from Naruto was the leader Adjuchas, his mask's smile stretched out even more than usual. There were a few splotches of what appeared to be blood splattered all over his mask, no doubt from his recent meal. The other Adjuchas were nowhere to be found, but that did not lessen the visible threat in the slightest.

Naruto shook some debris off of him, before the large Adjuchas opened his terrible mouth and laughed. A hideous mixture of saliva and blood flew from the mouth, which made the scene even more disgusting. The laugh was loud and raucous, and also had an arrogant tone that reverberated throughout the area.

The Adjuchas stopped laughing and turned his head towards Naruto, still smiling a toothy grin. Naruto relaxed into his fighting stance, but the Adjuchas didn't go on guard at all.

"You're quite the sneaky little Hollow, aren't you? So eager to save your own skin that you'd do it in a such a roundabout way. Those cowardly yet intelligent actions are perfect for your appearance," the Adjuchas started, eyeing Naruto's fox like features.

"You're going to need more than a couple of Shinigami to get away from us, though," said the Hollow conversationally, though his words sent Naruto on edge. A bead of sweat ran underneath his mask, and Naruto felt a sense of shameful fear enter his being. Unacceptable for a creature made from fear.

"Unfortunately for you, I have the most self-control of anyone in our little group. Though you managed to distract the other Adjuchas long enough to get away, something as minor as that would not work on me. You are an idiot to even think about coming to us and getting out alive," the Adjuchas continued, his words imprinting upon Naruto's consciousness.

"Bringing two Shinigami to our hive in order to appease us will not spare you. I only answered your questions because I didn't want to risk the precious food. However, just because I ate does not mean I'm willing to let more food just walk away unharmed," he explained. The Adjuchas then stopped talking, and sauntered his way over to where Naruto was standing.

Naruto attempted to move, but the Adjuchas' reiatsu was making it difficult. No matter how strong he was as a normal Hollow, he wasn't ready to take on a full-fledged Adjuchas. If he wasn't mistaken, this battle would go just like fights with Orochimaru when he was just a green Genin.

His eyes darted around the area, searching for any sort of possible escape route. The Adjuchas would be able to cover all of the ground area, and it would be impossible to escape with his inferior speed. Taking to the trees seemed like the best option, though if it turned out the Adjucahas could climb them then he was fucked.

He was too careless, as the Adjuchas seemed like it was ready for another meal.

The puny Hollow didn't notice him slink ever closer, like a lion ready to attack, yet not so obvious that it would put the prey on edge. But he didn't strike immediately; he liked to play with his food first.

It was too late when Naruto noticed the Adjuchas was closer. He was already in range. His keen senses sent him on even more alert, and the raw essence of primal fear wormed its way through his body.

His animal instincts were telling him to run, but his body didn't obey. It was an odd sight, Naruto still in a fighting stance but so afraid of the adversary in front of him. He was confident in his offering beforehand, but without it he realized how foolish and arrogant his plan had been.

The Adjuchas touched his mask lightly with his hand, forcing the younger Hollow to look at him. "This is a dog eat dog world, little Hollow. You're not a human anymore. You're a Hollow, and you are in Hueco Mundo. There are no laws, no punishments, and no order. We are animals. Animals that must eat everything weaker than them in order to survive. There is no _negotiation _when it comes to food," the Adjuchas explained.

The Adjuchas let go of his face, before lining up his fist to begin pummeling Naruto.

He registered the pure attack speed the Adjuchas had, as it had easily breached through his defenses. He felt agonizing pain in his side, and as he looked down he noticed a good sized chunk of flesh missing. The Adjuchas had bitten it clean off.

The pain jolted Naruto out of his fear, and he admonished himself for the mistake. God, he was pathetic. He had been in dozens of fights with stronger opponents and had never been afraid of them. If he was a Hollow, he should act like one.

He pushed off the ground, using a little reiatsu to increase the elasticity of the ground. When he had put himself out of attacking range, he clutched his side, getting blood all over his hands.

He kneeled down, hoping to get some reprieve, but the other Hollow would have none of that. He threw a heavy punch that caught Naruto's mask. Amazingly, the white material wasn't even dented from the assault, but the same couldn't be said for it's wearer.

The fox Hollow flew back what must've been fifty feet, his tail waving wildly in the air as he flew. The Adjuchas used a primitive form of Sonido to appear at the Hollow before he hit the ground.

He grabbed Naruto, and clutched the smaller Hollow, squeezing him and bringing him closer. This forced Naruto to be face-to-face with the Adjuchas' mask, which was grinning deviously at him.

"_No way... he's at such a high level,_" thought Naruto weakly as he was suffocated by the Hollow's hot, putrid breath. The Adjuchas' spiked forearms were digging into his skin and was making the experience all the worse.

"When you're this weak, there's no way that Las Noches would let you into their army. I'd give up on that dream of destroying the Shinigami, and simply resign yourself to becoming my food." Though their little skirmish was over, the Adjuchas continued to enjoy taunting Naruto. It had barely lasted thirty seconds.

"Give up... _give up... give up_..."

Those were the words than ran through Naruto's mind, and the only words that he actually registered from the Adjuchas. He had heard those words many times throughout his life, and had heard them far more than he would've liked to. The two despicable words that he loathed being told.

"_Give up..._"

His lip curled, and cruel teeth poked into view underneath his mask. He defiantly glared at the Adjuchas pinning him down, just as tenacious as he has always been. His eyes slanted in a glare, and his face was gaunt. There also seemed to be a rise in temperature, as if Naruto's fiery rage was almost palpable.

This bastard was crushing his ambition underneath its red fist, ripping it apart, and then burying it underneath the sand the Hueco Mundo. All because he believed the fox too weak to be able to accomplish it.

Naruto wasn't prepared to let that go freely.

"Don't EVER tell me to give up!" he shrieked, beginning to pry himself free from the Adjuchas' grasp, as if he were overcome with a burst of strength. He shifted a little more, and pushed on the Adjuchas' arms. The Adjuchas seemed to gawk in amusement as he watched Naruto resist, but when he felt Naruto begin to push harder and harder, his smirk turned into a frown.

He was stunned that this puny little Hollow was overwhelming him. In response, he tightened his grip on Naruto. Said Hollow gave a weird cross between a moan and a roar, and put even more force on the leader's arms.

Veins were bulging on both adversaries as they struggled for dominance. Neither one would give up, though the Adjuchas felt that it would be hopeless very soon. Such thoughts were not present in Naruto's mind, and the Hollow's rage and strength only increased as time passed.

"What?" yelled the Adjuchas as his arms finally yielded to the younger Hollow. Naruto hovered in the air for just a split second, though it felt like an eternity for the two of them. He took advantage of the situation, and brutally brought down his sharp claws right on the Adjuchas' mask.

The red Adjuchas howled in pain, three claw marks present on the right side of his mask from where he was struck. A large chunk of mask was missing from the right side of his mouth, letting Naruto get a slight glimpse of his bare face.

Naruto collapsed onto the ground, finally feeling the grievous injury in his side. He was breathing heavily, and his adrenaline filled rage was now all but forgotten. The wound was getting to him, and he didn't know how long he could keep this up.

The Adjuchas clutched his wounded face, all the while flailing his fists around randomly. He peered through his finger and noticed a white chunk of material on the ground in front of him. Intriguied, he bent over and picked it up, studying it closely while rolling the piece of bone mask around in his hand.

And then, he paled.

Naruto had just rolled over on his side when he heard a loud, drawn out yell emanate from across the clearing. He jolted upright, and winced when his side wound began to protest.

There was the Adjuchas, looking at his hands in horrified disbelief, standing some distance away from him. The white piece of mask fell to the ground, and Naruto felt the tension rise ever higher when it emitted a clattering noise.

The Adjuchas turned to look at him afterwards, and Naruto felt himself freeze. Upon the Adjuchas' face was the coldest, most evil look of pure rage and hatred that he had ever seen in his life. No human could _ever_ reproduce that look.

He stared in shock at the missing chunk from the Adjuchas' mask. Once he cleared his petrification, he tilted his head to the side in confusion, not understanding what the Adjuchas was getting so worked up over.

The Adjuchas was at him in an instant, his speed increasing dramatically. He mercilessly kicked Naruto away, sending him skidding along the ground. The friction from the force of the blow caused the sharp, jagged rocks to cut through Naruto's thick skin, making it raw and bleeding.

The Adjuchas gave Naruto no time to recover, and was once again at Naruto's side. He placed a heavy punch straight into Naruto's gut. The smaller Hollow coughed up a waterfall of blood, flying to the side again, before the Adjuchas flashed behind him and picked him up by the fur.

The Adjuchas leaned his face even closer, eyes boring into Naruto. Naruto tried some feeble attempts to get away, but unsurprisingly; the bigger Hollow refused to budge.

Naruto's tormentor walked over to the nearest quartz tree, Naruto in tow. He held the fox Hollow at arm's length for a moment, before brutally slamming his opponent straight into the quartz.

It was in a manner reminiscent of Ashido's torment, but this time the Adjuchas ground Naruto against the rock, causing even more serious injuries to the wounded Hollow.

One of Naruto's more serious wounds caught on a jutted out piece of quartz. Amazingly enough, Naruto hung suspended on it, his layer of open flesh and sinew painfully keeping him up.

The battered Hollow attempted to look away, but his face was grasped by the Adjuchas, forcing Naruto to look at him. His eyes were almost swollen shut, but he could still see that the Adjuchas' cold fury had not dissipated in the slightest.

"_Look _at me," he said simply, as he forced Naruto's eyes onto his partially broken mask. The pure venom behind the voice was staggering. Would _he _be capable of that much hate as an Adjuchas?

"Do you _see _what you have done? Your little rampage _broke _my mask! You should very well know what happens when an Adjuchas has his mask broken!"

The Adjuchas' cold rage was morphing, becoming a purely angry rage similar to Naruto's. He thrust Naruto against the tree again, still not satisfied.

"I can _never _evolve into a Vasto Lorde! You have permanently stunted my evolution by keeping me as an Adjuchas _forever!_" the now permanent Adjuchas' exclaimed. He dropped Naruto, allowing the Hollow to crumple pitifully at his feet. He gave one final well-placed kick to Naruto, before turning away from him.

"I'm going to kill you now, you understand? This game has gone on far enough, and your very existence is insulting to me," stated the Adjuchas, more to himself than to Naruto.

The Adjuchas turned back around when he heard a grunt from Naruto. Naruto's skin was no longer capable of holding him aloft. The small bit of flesh ripped itself from Naruto's body, in order to continue hanging on the quartz.

Naruto fell to the ground, lying at the Adjuchas' feet. He desperately attempted to get up, but his body was not responding to his tries. The Adjuchas noticed that Naruto was completely at his mercy, and despite his condition, tried to smile.

It came out as more of a sneer instead.

"Die," he hissed loudly, as he bent down in order to begin eating the Hollow.

Just as the angry Hollow was about to end it, a strange rumble shook the area, causing the Adjuchas to look around in confusion. Little pebbles were convulsing back and forth, making the scene look almost like a natural sequence.

Naruto managed to smile despite his injuries.

"_It worked,_" he thought in amazement as the rumbling became more pronounced.

And then, almost ominously... it stopped. Only the shrill cry of a distant Hollow rang through the landscape, and Naruto and the Adjuchas stood mystified at what happened.

From the darkness spewed hundreds of normal Hollows, coming forth into the clearing like a swarm of brutal insects. Howls, roars, and other animalistic cries shook the trees, and agile Hollows leaped from the tops of trees in mass number, eager to join the rest of the Hollows.

The present horde moved closer to the hive, more Hollows becoming visible as space was made free. The Adjuchas leader looked around in terror as he saw Hollows in all direction getting closer, rapidly blotting out any visible ground or escape routes. He was so immersed in the situation at hand that he didn't noticed Naruto limp away.

The Hollows were unyielding in their destructive trek, and the Adjuchas found out that he was running out of luck, and fast. He gutted the first Hollow, before barely dodging a strike from another one.

Using his superior speed, he rushed through a line of Hollows, killing dozens while taking dozens of injuries. Fortunately for him, his thick skin held out for him, and he was left with fairly minor wounds.

But he was getting overwhelmed. Two Hollows crouched below and bit into his legs, causing the Adjuchas to buckle and kneel to the oppressive force.

Nearby Hollows started frothing at the mouth at the prospect of such a large meal, and a huge mass of Hollows converged from the horde, becoming a crowded circle of hungry Hollows and one unfortunate Adjuchas.

There came a tortured scream from the center of the mass of flesh, and red limbs and organs flew everywhere. An explosion of blood erupted from the center, spraying everything a good five feet away from it.

The Hollows folded back in line, almost like a swarm of ants. The non-eating Hollows paid them no mind, and simply continued on. The Hollows at the front lines lines worked their ways into the holes of the hive, one after the other.

After many, many Hollows brazenly entered the hive, screams could be heard coming from inside. Sounds of ripping flesh dissipated as the other Adjuchas emerged from the hive, looking worse for wear but otherwise able of beating their opponents.

But there was nowhere for them to go, except for the sea of Hollows before them. The normal Hollows were at their heels, putting all of them in a pinch.

A few excess Hollows coming from the rear began nipping at their heels, which caused the all the Adjuchas to inadvertently fall one by one to their deaths.

The Hollows below wasted no time in getting to their food, each one eager to get their own shot. Even their Hollow allies coming from the hive were not spared, and were ripped apart and eaten as well.

When the last Adjuchas fell to his death, all was silent. However, nearly one minute later, a rustling noise occurred as another figure wormed his way out of the hive.

From the cavern came the last surviving Adjuchas. It was a small adjuchas, around the same size as Naruto and with brown skin. He vaguely resembled an upright insect, with the corresponding antennae, thorax, and abdomen. But the body was too warped for it to be actually considered one. It had a single tail underneath, made of large, round segments. On the end of the tail there was a rather nasty looking stinger, made of a jade green crystalline substance. His mask was also insectoid, with the deep, sunken eyes and lack of other facial features.

The stinger gave off a green glow, but it wasn't the only luminescent thing. The Hollow's antenna also glowed, and so did the large area of crystalline substance that it had all around its torso.

There were splotches of blood all over his body, but he was completely unharmed. It was almost... unnatural to view.

One by one, the surrounding Hollows edged closer to the Adjuchas. There was a far away look in their eyes, almost like the luminescence was luring them...

* * *

After he had escaped, Naruto took to the treetops again, which was naturally the route that had barely any Hollows in it. Sure, he came across one or two hostile ones, but they were nothing he couldn't handle, even seriously injured.

As he forced himself onto an outlying branch, he began to ponder his approach. He had been lucky; he realized that now. He had hoped to lure some Hollows into the darkness as a fail-safe, but what had produced _that_ big of a horde. He didn't dwell on it though. What's done is done, and if he stayed around for too long they would likely catch up to him.

After around two hours of climbing, he once again reached his cave. This time, he had gotten there with much more than minimal trouble.

He squeezed into the crevice of the cave, contorting his body in order to fit. It wasn't a very long tunnel, and within seconds he reached a much larger area.

It was about thirty feet in diameter, enough of a suitable living space for the young Hollow. There were various rock shelves along the walls, almost making it seem like a kind of barracks. A few rare scattered plants were situated along them.

Naruto lied himself down on one of the shelves, glad to be back in his cave and away from danger. The area was unknown and treacherous to reach, and it was only by pure luck that he had found this little gem. Because of the isolation, he could take time to heal his wounds before starting to search for Las Noches.

Hollows didn't have to sleep at all. They could, but they didn't need to in order to survive. It was advantageous for them to say the least, as they didn't have to worry about getting killed in their sleep.

Naruto adopted a quiet, pensive mood that was rare for him as he lied awake on the rock shelf. He thought about the exit to the surface, which the Adjuchas had told him about. The Adjuchas... he thought about them as well. They were _so _powerful. If he became one of them, surely he would be able to match the Shinigami.

He was almost giddy at the thought. But luck was not on his side, as he didn't even know _how _Hollows could become Adjuchas. Over a month of eating Hollows in this place had yielded no knowledge from any of the Hollows. He _did, _however, know how to become a Gillian, but that alternative wasn't exactly alluring.

The cave was lonely, but unlike his human self, he didn't mind the solitude. He had gotten used to it in his month as a Plus, and although he wished for companions, he knew it was nothing but wishful thinking in this world. What really mattered now was food, revenge, and more food.

He decided to continue on with his plan to go to Las Noches. It was reckless, but since when was he one to care about risk. They probably had a mountain of Adjuchas there, and maybe then he could learn how to become one. But, what if they were unwilling to help him? He wasn't fool enough to believe the leader would just launch an assault on Soul Society just for his sake. But, he should at least be able to enlist in their ranks and gain some power... right?

Naruto roared; all these uncertainties were giving him a headache. What the hell happened to his "deal with it when it comes" attitude that had gotten him so far? He was Naruto Uzumaki, dammit! He didn't just sit around and think about uncertainties! He dove into action!

Naruto rose to his suddenly, determined to reach Las Noches. But a spasm of pain shot through him as his wound reacted, and he grudgingly lied back down. He would go in a few days... once his damned wounds healed.

* * *

"_This must be it," _thought Naruto, as it looked at the tunnel. True to the Adjuchas' words, it was indeed located on a high cliff. He had taken the auxiliary route here this time, wanting to avoid the abyss. He was now standing on a big ledge that was outside of the exit.

He walked into it, taking note of the surrounding darkness. Around five feet into the tunnel, the path become slanted, and he would have to climb his way up. He was about to step on a foothold when a voice halted him.

"Wait."

Naruto turned around at an amazing speed, trying to locate the owner of that voice. His eyes widened when he noticed a familiar Hollow standing behind him, about twenty to thirty regular Hollow right behind him. Naruto racked his brain, and his mind settled in on his memory of the Adjuchas hive.

The fox's eyes widened. "You're..." he trailed off as he remembered the bio-luminescent Adjuchas that the others were all huddled around.

He snarled and put himself on guard, in every way prepared for a fight. But the bio-luminescent Adjuchas calmly raised a pincer, which seriously confused Naruto.

"I am not here to fight you, young Hollow. Rather, we are here to talk to you," explained the Hollow. His voice was quiet and wispy, and seemed to release a calming aura. It reminded Naruto of Shino for a moment, until he noticed the underlying sorrow and emotion that was hidden. Whatever the case, this being did not have the personality of the average Hollow.

Naruto didn't drop his guard, though. You learned to do that very quickly when living in Hueco Mundo. For all he knew, this Hollow might just be leading him into a false sense of security.

"Why should I trust you?" asked Naruto. Nothing changed on the face of the other Hollow, almost as if he were expecting this type of reaction. "In case you haven't forgotten, you're one of the Adjuchas who was in that group."

"Yes," said the Adjuchas patiently. "But that doesn't mean that I was a part of that group willingly," it finished, finally letting some readable emotion onto its mask.

"What do you mean?" asked Naruto, curious but at the same time suspicious.

"Rather than tell you, I'll show you what I mean," he said. At the same time he did, the crystalline substance on his body grew brighter, and the twenty or so Hollows behind moved closer, staring at the crystals in even more of a daze. Even Naruto himself felt somewhat compelled to stare.

"My body acts as a lure for mindless and near-mindless Hollows. Every Hollow that sees the green light would be put into a daze of sorts, and from then on can do nothing but stare at the light," he explained, as Naruto shielded his eyes from the bright light. "You could say that this ability would be coveted in Hueco Mundo," he said, and Naruto was surprised to hear a slight bitterness that he hadn't noticed before.

"So you were basically a slave to the other Adjuchas?" asked Naruto rhetorically. He still couldn't figure just what it wanted with him though.

"Yes, and truth be told, I wasn't the only one under the oppression of the Adjuchas," he said, all traces of bitterness gone from his voice. The Adjuchas slouched suddenly, and glanced at the Hollows behind him with a look of regret.

"This entire sector of Hueco Mundo was under the rule of those Adjuchas, and they could not stopped. Sometimes they would sneak out of their hive, and begin feasting on normal Hollows. Hundreds at a time fell to their hunger. It's safe to say that almost everyone here would be happy to see them gone."

"What does that have to do me?" asked Naruto, tired of the other Hollow beating around the bush.

The firefly Hollow straightened himself, now talking in a stronger voice. "Simply put, your bravado of entering the forbidden area raised the morale of the Hollow. They saw your action as an attempt to overthrow the Adjuchas and claim the hive."

"But a few rebellious Hollow shouldn't be enough to cause _that_ big of a horde."

The Adjuchas nodded. "This is true. But I knew of the Hollow's feelings and used my lure to add some more Hollows into the mix. Remember, even if they're mindless, the Hollows can still tell when they like something or not."

The Hollows behind him began to stir, as if they were agreeing with their leader's statement.

"The reason we've followed you is that... we... well," he trailed off, almost seeming embarrassed by his own words.

"We want to accompany you to Las Noches."

Silence. Nobody said anything for likely the next minute. Naruto blinked at the sudden request, slightly taken aback by it. But he was the only one. The Hollows in front of him seemed to have resolved themselves into following him.

"Why?"

The insect raised his pincers. "Similar to you, I have a personal vendetta that I wish to settle. And joining Las Noches is the perfect chance for me. The Hollows behind me have no real purpose, and are simply lured in by my abilities. But they would make a fine escort and a fine addition to the armies of Las Noches."

Naruto shook his head. "No, I mean why would you want to follow me? You're an Adjuchas and are a lot stronger than I am."

The bug smiled, though Naruto couldn't see it.

"It's rare for someone else to share the same sentiments as yourself in the underground. And call it a hunch, but I can sense some massive potential in you. You're a Hollow that is going to do a lot of good for our race. I know it. I don't want to waste such an opportunity."

Naruto said nothing, but the slightly raised breathing was indication that the other Hollow's words had an effect on him.

"So what do you say. Partners?"

The Adjuchas held out one of his sharp pincers, clearly wanting to initiate a deal. Naruto stared at the chela for a moment, before looking at its owner. He panned back and forth between them, his black orbs showing indecisiveness, stress, and even a bit of nervousness.

The fox Hollow slowly raised his paw, before enclosing around the pincer. He tightened his grip, invariably digging his claws into the other Hollow's skin.

"Partners."

The Adjuchas seemed to lighten up in glee as he shook the claw enthusiastically. He took the pincer away from the fox Hollow and pointed at himself.

"My name's Fuermos."

"Naruto Uzumaki," said Naruto, a weak smile on his face.

* * *

Baraggan Louisenbairn was bored. Very bored.

He ruled over Las Noches; he had no enemies to fight for the time being, and his army was incredibly strong. So it's only natural that there would be nothing to do, except stare off into space and be bored.

His personal guard was kneeling in two perfect lines in front of his throne. He scoffed. The bunglers. Their instincts were getting weak, no doubt the result of being away from battle for so long. Maybe he should just split his army into two and have them fight each other. That would learn them. He quickly shot down that idea. He might be arrogant, but he didn't rule _all _of Hueco Mundo, and there were still enemies that are a threat to him.

The skeleton Vasto Lorde yet again rejected his servant's tea, not wanting any of it. What he _did_ want was to fight. To experience the thrill of battle, to spill blood all over the sands of Hueco Mundo, and to rot some poor soul with his Respira.

But, who was he kidding. He had been cooped up in the palace for far too long, so going out to battle was nothing short of an impossibility. Hell, he had even run out of Hollows to put in his arena, where he and his subjects could watch them slaughter each other. If that would happen, he could actually _not _be bored for a change. But no, the cells were now running empty, and he couldn't locate any more Hollows in the area.

The old king sighed again. He just wished that _something_ would happen.

* * *

Chapter 4 is done!

And that's right, Baraggan is the one ruling over Las Noches at this time, not Aizen. And I've added an OC *gasp*. But there's more to Fuermos than meets the eye.

That's all for now.

**Translations and other features.**

Sonido: Sound

Respira: Breathe

Please Review.


	5. Apaciguando a Dios

Aaaaaaaand here's Chapter 5, folks. Naruto, Fuermos, and the rest of their Hollow group are on their way to Las Noches. But what will its bored king think of them?

Disclaimer: Naruto and Bleach do not belong to me.

* * *

Chapter 5: Apaciguando a Dios

The wind skirted through the giant sand dunes of Hueco Mundo, lifting up the pure white sand in an unusually gentle rhythmic movement. The disturbed sand flitted over to a tiny cave entrance that made a miniscule speck on the landscape.

Within its depths, a lonely mammalian snout poked it's way from beyond the entrance of the cave. It moved it's way farther out into the open, the rest of the face becoming visible in the moonlight. Bloodshot eyes... paranoid eyes they were. They frantically moved to and fro across the landscape, taking in all of their surroundings. They even looked to the rear, clearly not completely trusting their new companions yet.

Fuermos was at the head of the new group, his pensive expression unchanged. Behind him were the other Hollows, their masks showing many different expressions, ranging from broad, toothy grins to closed mouth frowns. He vaguely wondered whether or not they were capable of feeling the emotions that were plastered on their masks. Naruto noticed that they hadn't said a word, or.. couldn't say a word. They distinctly reminded him of the ANBU. Silent warriors who lived to mindlessly serve their (corrupt) master, who often doubled as cannon fodder.

"_Cannon fodder who are likely reaping the benefits of Kyuubi, no doubt_" he thought scornfully, as images of a red-cloaked shinobi entered his mind. It made his blood boil. Those rat bastards in Konoha would pay the price... dearly. But, not now. Not with the damned Shinigami showing their faces there all the time. Konoha would just continue on living its life, romanticizing the exploits of the ninja and preaching their superficial Will of Fire bullshit. Never mind that they're receiving help from the beyond.

Naruto paused for a moment, not daring to believe that he was actually one of them once. Only after becoming a Hollow did he realize how much was needed to be sacrificed in order to maintain their reputation.

"So... Las Noches should come into view about ten miles east of here, is that right?" asked Fuermos, relaying the information to the group. Naruto half-watched him as he rallied the Hollows together, the luminescence brightening and dimming to match the purpose of the brainwashing.

"Yeah... if that Adjuchas leader can be trusted," said Naruto.

"Oh, I wouldn't worry too much about that. That claim that he was only distantly connected with Las Noches is false. He only said that to keep face around here. The truth of the matter is that he originally belonged to Las Noches, in its army to be exact." said Fuermos.

"He was? Then what was he doing down in the Menos Forest?" asked Naruto, his mask conveying a look of astonishment.

Fuermos smiled at him. "I don't know the full details, as he was unlikely to share any personal information, but I do know this. There was an event that traumatized him during his time in Las Noches. You see, it's king, Baraggan Luisenbarn, has some pretty nasty habits. Falling out of his favor can have some drastic consequences."

"Anyway, there came a point in time where he was expelled from the palace of Las Noches. The reasons for that are unclear, but I have an odd hunch that it was a mission failure that caused it, but what's really clear is that King Baraggan had tried to execute him in some way, but failed. After the incident at Las Noches, he wandered around the surface for a while, before he fell into the Menos Forest through the same manner in which all Hollows do. Obviously the weak Hollows that exist in the Menos Forest were no match for an Adjuchas. He bit and tore his way through the Menos Forest, until he came across the same hive you found just days ago. He met the previous leader of the sector, to who he challenged in a battle for supremacy. But, the previous leader was no match for the superior combat training of Las Noches, and within minutes he was slaughtered and replaced as leader."

Naruto's ears twitched, only hearing the words "superior combat training" and "Las Noches". He sped over to Fuermos and grabbed the larger Hollow's shoulders, shaking them frantically.

"Is it true? You can really become that much stronger by joining Las Noches?" he asked.

"Oh yes, the training you get there is top of the line for Hollows," said Fuermos, surprised by Naruto's change in aggression, as it was the first time he had seen this behavior. He used his segmented tail to gently pry Naruto off of him, before walking ahead of the younger Hollow.

"That's why we're going there, right?" asked Fuermos rhetorically, as he began to trek off into Hueco Mundo. The other Hollows followed obidiently. "To gain power..." His voice sounded particularly far away.

Naruto hid a look of excitement and determination, before falling into line with the others as they began to walk in the direction of Las Noches.

They didn't look back...

From the darkness of the cave the party had just left, two disturbingly black, slanted eyes watched the group walk through Hueco Mundo, the gaze focusing particularly on Naruto. The eyes disappeared for a moment, before their owner slinked out of the cave.

It was a black-cloaked, slightly hunched figure about seven feet in height. Most of its face was obscured by the hood that it wore. Its head inclined down to the footprints the group had made, before turning to look in their direction almost sinisterly.

It laughed suddenly, the pitches and tones changing abruptly making it sound disturbing. At one moment, it would be cool and calm, and the next it would be high-pitched and distorted. "Looks like I can get that Hollow to be my-" It's voice sounded calm and smooth at first, before it changed to a bizarre mix between a hiss and a buzz.

"-successor," it finished as it ended it's episode, acting as if nothing had ever happened.

"All he needs is a push in the right direction," it said cryptically.

* * *

It was strange... Naruto would say, that he actually enjoyed his time with Fuermos. They would talk regularly, sharing stories of both their human and Hollow lives, arguing about what type of Hollows are best to eat, and so on. Fuermos didn't seem to be too keen on the whole "food" thing, but even he couldn't deny his Hollow urges at times.

With his time in the group, Naruto would laugh regularly, as even the other Hollows started to come out of their shell, doing showy tricks around the campfire that generally amused everyone present. Due to Fuermos' control, not even a single fight broke out between the Hollows, and hunger was not a problem, since they ran into several Hollows during their trips.

Naruto had truly gained companionship, and dare he say it, _friends_. Actual friends that didn't fill him with hatred or rage. In his mind, he wondered how long this would last...

For the past few days, the small group had walked quite a ways, and with an Adjuchas there, any unlucky Hollow that crossed their path was a sitting duck for them.

Las Noches came into view after only a day, but the Hollows realized that their journey was still far from complete. It had now been a week since they left the forest, and they had still only reached the most distant outposts of Las Noches. The ones that were so far removed that they shouldn't even be considered a part of Las Noches.

Naruto was about to walk the direct path to Las Noches, before Fuermos stopped him.

"We're going to go around these outposts and take the indirect path to Las Noches," he said.

"What! Why?" said Naruto, annoyance creeping into his voice. If there was anything that annoyed him about Fuermos, it was his tendency to waste time with his longer, more complicated plans and routes.

Fuermos looked at him. "Because there's bound to be sentries stationed along this path. Not to mention the giant sand Hollow Lunuganga lives along this path. It's best to take a slightly longer path free of any danger," said Fuermos a little forcefully.

"Fine, fine," said Naruto exasperatedly. This wasn't the first time Fuermos had irritated him. Generally, the Adjuchas tended to play on the safe side, taking his time and thinking things through first. Naruto, on the other hand, recklessly clung on the dangerous side of life, being brutally decisive and preferring not to waste time.

Fuermos had already begun walking, the other Hollows giving him a wide berth as he passed. He was walking up a fairly small hill to the left of Naruto, when a blurry, silver streak flashed horizontally along the bug Hollow's torso. It was long and narrow, and for a split second nobody could tell what it was. That is, until it propelled Fuermos off of the hill back into the narrow depression where Naruto stood.

At the top of the hill stood an Adjuchas, larger than Fuermos, with long, gangly limbs and a bird-like face. There was a small tattoo on it's torso, appearing to be some sort of realistic human skull. It held a stoic expression on its beaky face, showing off a very professional, non-personal demeanor.

"Halt!" it cried, its authoritative voice and stature bearing a striking resemblance to a medieval guard.

"If you're going in that direction you must only be headed for the palace of Las Noches. Nobody is allowed in there without King Baraggan's consent," said the bird in a monotone voice.

"_A sentry," _thought Fuermos. "_This isn't good. If we've met a sentry out this far, who knows how many more might be on the road ahead."_

"Who are you to tell me what-" started Naruto, before Fuermos pulled him away from the sentry and over to the side.

"What are you doing? You can't challenge someone from Las Noches! There might be others around to back him up!" whispered Fuermos in a terse voice, pulling the fox Hollow's head closer to his own.

"See all those small buildings along the path?" he said, panning Naruto's head around the land. "Those are outposts for guys like him. Some are abandoned, but any one of them could have more sentries!"

"Well, what do _YOU _suggest we do?" asked Naruto angrily. "In case you haven't noticed, this guy's not exactly keen on letting us in."

"I've got a plan on this," hissed Fuermos. "Just look at him." Both Hollows turned around to see that the sentry had turned his attention away from them and onto a small lizard that was burrowing it's way up. The sentry kept on attempting to hit it with his wiry limbs.

Naruto and Fuermos turned away from it, a mutual understanding present on each of their faces.

"He doesn't exactly seem like the smartest Hollow in the world. We just may be able to sucker our way into Las Noches." said Fuermos.

Understanding lit itself on Naruto's face, as he squeezed past the fox Hollow over to the sentry. "Just follow my lead," he whispered to Naruto at the last moment.

Fuermos picked up a handful of sand, gesturing for Naruto to do the same. He then threw the sand all over himself, making himself look dirtier and more raggedy.

Naruto did the same, and somehow even the other Hollows had registered that they needed to throw sand all over themselves as well.

"OOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH," moaned Fuermos pitifully, turning the guard's attention back to the ragtag group. He saw the big Adjuchas in the center lie down on the ground, and pretty soon the fox Hollow behind awkwardly joined him, and soon after there were more than twenty Hollows lying in the sand.

The guard was seriously perplexed by this behavior, before he remembering that he was addressing these Hollows before. "Oh yeah, as I was saying, no intruders allowed in Las Noches!" he said forcefully.

"But please, you must let us in to see Baraggan-sama," said Fuermos quietly, subtly increasing the intensity of his light before moaning again. Naruto, despite his humiliation, moaned along with him.

"Quiet! Why should I, the great Rixalo, take you pathetic weaklings to see His Majesty," he shouted, poising his limb to strike Fuermos. Somehow the limb looked like it had gotten a lot sharper.

"But-"

"Shut up! Shut up or I'll kill you!" Rixalo said coldly, it's sharpened limb now touching the cheek of Fuermos' mask. It was clear that Rixalo was not going to take pity.

"_Damn, looks like my powers aren't even going to slightly work in this case. Guess I'll have to try-" _thought Fuermos as he lowered himself even more.

"But you're Rixalo! The greatest and strongest sentry to ever grace Las Noches! Surely you wouldn't kill your greatest fans, would you?"

Naruto gagged. Fuermos' voice had turned so sugar-coated... so patronizing that it was disgusting! How Fuermos could stand to lower himself that much was beyond him. What was even worse was that the tone of his voice said that he would kill Rixalo the first chance he got.

But Rixalo fell for the comments hook, line, and sinker. The stupid Hollow puffed out it's chest, looking ridiculous but at the same time so proud of himself.

"I have fans?" he asked. "I know my military exploits were great, but I didn't realize that backwater hicks like yourselves would've ever heard of me."

Fuermos kept up the act. "Oh yes, great Rixalo. In fact, the only reason we're here is because we wish to follow in your footsteps. Of course, none of us here believe that we could ever became anywhere near your greatness, but still we wish to try to achieve your level of greatness!"

Rixalo stroked his chin. "I like the sound of that. More sentries would mean more leisure time for me." The bird turned to look at the kneeling Hollows, all of whom were silent now. "_I wonder if Baraggan-sama would let it slide just this once?"_

Done with thinking, he pointed at the group. "Very well, then. I will take you to see His Majesty. However, you must show the _utmost_ respect to him and to me. Is that clear?"

Everyone nodded obidiently.

Rixalo smirked. "Good, we should go then."

* * *

Despite being under Rixalo's protection, the trip to Las Noches still took several hours. And Rixalo had a special tendency to pick on Naruto the most, so the Hollow in question felt his pride deflate more and more every time Rixalo would so much as look at him.

Naruto of course wanted nothing more than to attack him, or insult him, but a dirty glare from Fuermos kept him in line. It was then that Naruto realized just what a foolish thing pride was. Hmph, pride was such a useless thing in Hueco Mundo, because there was none. There was no honor either, and Hollows here did everything they could to win. That itself was the epitome of honor in their society.

"We're here," said Rixalo, stopping so suddenly that Naruto almost bumped into him. They were standing in front of an enormous, jade-green wall, reaching up hundreds of feet. Naruto could see nothing over the top of the wall except for four large pillars that would vaguely remind one of Muslim minarets. There was a staircase next to them, reaching up into the sky with hundreds, if not thousands of steps that seemed to lead to nowhere. Rixalo was already ascending them.

"You won't get anywhere just standing at the base of the palace," he said, smirking languidly at them.

Naruto was stunned. "_The BASE?" _he thought incredulously.

True to the guard's word, the "wall" was actually just the base of the palace, with the inhabitable area suspended hundreds of feet off the ground. Apparently, Baraggan had an extreme taste for size, as the vastness of the entire structure increased as the travelers entered the main area.

For starters, there were no floors and only low walls, but some areas were higher than others, making full vision of the place impossible. Rixalo had taken them to a spot in close proximity to Baraggan's throne room, so the king himself was visible from their position.

Naruto's breath hitched. Here was his only chance to impress the king of Hueco Mundo with his drive and determination. He had better not screw it up. Speaking of Baraggan, he had noticed the group as soon as they reached Las Noches, their reiatsu being a clear indicator. He was now watching themm out of his empty eye sockets, particularly focusing in on Rixalo.

The group of Hollows walked through the wide space that led to Baraggan's throne room. Rixalo took the same position as the two dozen Hollow flanking the group, motioning everyone else to do the same. The entire group looked slightly nervous being in the presence of the king of Las Noches, as if a God was in front of them judging their lives and their futures.

Baraggan seemed pleased, and spread his arms out in a welcoming fashion. "Ah, Rixalo, back so soon? I thought I scheduled you on guard duty for the next week?"

Rixalo looked slightly nervous as he addressed his lord. "Yes, my liege, you did. But I found this group of Hollows along the path claiming that they wished to join the army of Las Noches. I believe you will find them quite fascinating, Baraggan-sama,"

"_It's not like you would disagree with me, anyway."_

"A group that I would be interested in, eh? Good work, Rixalo. This is just the cure for the boredom that I've been enduring," said Baraggan, rising to his feet.

Rixalo beamed at the praise.

"In fact," Baraggan continued. "You've done such a good job that you need to be rewarded. Come up to the foot of my throne and I will grant you your award."

Rixalo looked like he couldn't believe his ears. He murmured something giddily, before scrambling to his feet and sprinting up the side staircase to the foot of the throne.

"Turn around," Baraggan commanded, and Rixalo did so gladly, closing his eyes dreamily. He thought he was going to get a promotion. "Now-" Baraggan said as he reached into his robe, and...

_Squelch._

In a speed that no one there could register, Baraggan whipped our a _huge _battleaxe, and proceeded to lop Rixalo's head off with a clean cut unfitting of that type of weapon. Blood shot out of the Rixalo's neck, drenching both Baraggan and his axe in red. The bell above him rang, and Rixalo's headless body fell to the ground, while the head bounced onto the ground below, still wearing the happy, dreamy expression it had when alive.

Nobody made a sound. The flanking Hollows didn't budge, and only Naruto looked disgruntled. Not because Rixalo had been brutally murdered, but because he felt that his chances for being accepted into Las Noches had been destroyed.

Baraggan sat back down, kicking the headless body below to be swiftly devoured.

"Stupid ant. Coming back here just because of a few Hollows. I don't have any use for someone who won't follow my orders."

"But I suppose this is a temporary cure to boredom." he mused. "Welcome to my palace of Las Noches. I trust that the claim Rixalo said about you was true."

Naruto took the liberty of speaking up for the group. "Yes, King Baraggan-sama. Be it for a grudge, hope, or just a whim, every one of us here wishes to join your army and be full fledged members of Las Noches." The fox Hollow felt it was one of those rare times where he shouldn't piss off the one he was talking to, so his voice was respectful, yet filled with strength and confidence.

There was some hushed whispering coming from the Hollows on the side, and Naruto felt his already reduced confidence waning.

Baraggan relaxed his head on his head. "Hm, interesting; it seems that you're dead set on this."

"Yes, your Highness. We all wish for power to change life for everyone here, and you, your Majesty, are the only one capable of giving that to us," Fuermos continued on from where Naruto left off, only including his own dreams but not Naruto's.

"You can get rid of our oppressors, the Soul Society, and rise to become the ruler of them as well. The entire world is open to you if I can change Hueco Mundo."

Baraggan listened in stony silence as the insect Adjuchas continued to speak.

"Will you give us power?" he asked, his voice adopting a gentle pleading tone.

The entire room went silent for a minute, the tension and stress rising to stifling limits. But then a chuckle broke the silence. It started out soft, before rising in volume and intensity. Pretty soon, it was full blown laughter. Baraggan was _laughing_ at them.

Naruto and Fuermos looked at each other and stood there with a dumbfounded look on their face as the king laughed.

"Ridiculous! **Ridiculous!"**

"YOU ANTS! **YOU ANTS!" **the king screeched, using the very same words he would repeat in years to come.

"Look around you! What do I need an increase in the size of my army for? What do I need a change for? I rule over all of Hueco Mundo! I AM A _**GOD!**_" he yelled as he continued his hysterical laughter. The bell had rang several times, and Baraggan looked very intimidating standing there with his black, blood-stained cloak.

Baraggan settled down a bit. "Listen. This army has defeated kingdoms that would make you quiver in fear! The greatest Adjuchas from all over Hueco Mundo come to join my army! We have defeated numerous settlements and taken loads of territory! Everyone who stands in our way is crushed!"

Baraggan took a pause in his rambling. "What do we need_** YOU**_ for?" he said, pointing his axe at all of them.

Fuermos looked like he had his spirit crushed, while Naruto was grinding his teeth in anger.

"What the hell do you know, ya old jackass! You're just an ancient Hollow too self-absorbed in his own success to notice how the rest of the world!" he yelled back, baring his teeth menacingly at Baraggan.

Everyone stood stock still, frozen in shock at this blatant insult to the greatest lord of Hueco Mundo. Fuermos' masked jaw dropped, and the Adjuchas in Baraggan's army starting shaking in fear of their master's wrath.

But to their surprise, Baraggan actually began to chuckle.

"Oho, we've got a feisty one here, eh? How... refreshing. It seems like I may have a use for you, after all."

Baraggan clapped his hands. "Guards, take them to the holding cells on the other side of the palace." His face darkened, the skull's eyes being shadowed. "I've got a very _special_ purpose for you..."

The Hollows on the side of group seemed only to respond to their king's clapping, and almost immediately, they had formed a tight barrier blocking any exit except for the main one. But that too was flooded by a plethora of guards. The Las Noches insignias were tattooed all over their bodies, just in the way Rixalo's was.

One seized Naruto by the arm, which prompted him to attempt to bite it. He was thumped heavily on the head for his trouble though, and was quickly overpowered. Amidst his struggling, he witnessed Fuermos get overpowered as well, and the weak Hollows temporarily gain their free will before being captured as well.

And so they were forcibly carried away. Naruto being incredibly violent, Fuermos holding a looked of detached disapproval, and Baraggan once again looking bored as ever. The only difference this time is that he actually had someway to pass the time.

* * *

Well, it turned out that Las Noches was actually the size of a small country. There was a sandy expanse within the interior of Las Noches that had many curious oddities and illusions. There were small towns, housing quarters that looked like they served a very high-ranking officer, and an arena that looked remarkably similar to the Colosseum in Rome. Putting aside that this level of sophistication seems too high for the Hollow species, the arena was the key area in this little predicament. It was placed in an area which would later become the battlefield between a human with Shinigami powers and a high-level Arrancar. But the arena itself was falling out of use due to Baraggan's success. There were no more war prisoners to act as the combatants, and floors and seats were starting to get cracked, dirty, and dingy.

It was the wish of Baraggan, and indeed everyone in Las Noches for the arena to host events once more. Several dozen Hollows were stationed there to be the prime fighters in the arena. Of course, it was rigged so the Las Noches' Hollows were generally much stronger than their opponents.

And here's where it begins. The holding cells were strategically positioned in close quarters to the arena, so war prisoners could look at the arena and think about what was to come. Some even drove themselves insane with their anxiety.

Due to Las Noches' immense size, it took almost an entire day for the guards to reach these holding cells, and during the intervening time they remembered to treat their captives as badly as possible. Naruto and Fuermos were beaten a dozen times, and the guards even decided to indulge themselves in a couple of the weaker Hollows. And despite their injuries, they were roughly thrown into old, dingy cells that were falling into decay.

Naruto grunted as his back hit the wall of the cell, having been thrown in roughly by the guards.

He rushed towards the door as soon as he could, causing him to bang his head on the bars as they shut. He flew back from the door, slamming into the wall as if the bars seemed to repel him for some reason.

The guards laughed cruelly at his brazenness, and took time to taunt him by hitting him from the outside of the cage, with wiry limbs and whips. Naruto attempted to bite one of the guard's hands off, but that only succeeded in making them angry.

The guards gave him a sound beating, before leaving him to wallow in his pathetic misery. Naruto glanced around, and noticed everyone else was in the same predicament as he was in. The cells were subpar. Numerous stone bricks had been removed, and what looked like green slime was oozing it's way down the ceiling, floors, and walls. The wrought iron bars looked deceptively old and brittle, but they shone with an unnatural green glow.

He walked up to them and slowly eased his paw through the bars, only to be halted by a translucent, free-flowing barrier that was glowing the same shade of green as the bars. His face adopted a look of pellucid anger, before he slashed at the barrier with his claws. The barrier only rippled, and remained intact regardless.

What was it? Was it a primitive form of Kidou? Or just a reiatsu trick put in place by Baraggan? Whatever the case, it was blocking the way, and they needed to figure out how to get out of there. He tried to break the barrier for at least five minutes, before he vaguely heard Fuermo's voice over the din.

"It's no use, Naruto." Fuermos stressed the futility of the action from over the unintelligent noises of the other Hollows. From the exasperation in his voice, it looked like Fuermos had indeed attempted to break it too, only for the barrier to repel him just like it did Naruto.

Naruto roared, recklessly throwing himself at the barrier in a crazed fashion. For the next 12 hours, the entire vicinity would be filled with the haunting sounds of roars, shrieks, and sorrowful moans.

* * *

Baraggan had prolonged their stay in the holding cells immensely, and the group of Hollows had remained in the holding cell for a total of three years. Hosting an event at the arena took months to prepare as it was, but the king also put off the event to make them suffer. He had time after all, being nigh immortal.

The Vasto Lorde felt extreme resentment every time he thought of Hollows like that. Baraggan himself started out like them, a self-righteous Hollow who wished for nothing more than the betterment of their species. And the only way to do that was to ascend to the top. He evolved into a Vasto Lorde and built his empire with his own two bony hands. But fulfilling his dream was much harder than he originally anticipated. He recruited many strong Hollows into his forces, and for the first decade or so, everything seemed to be going great. Life for Hollows had genuinely improved, and he had built a sort of utopia in this barren wasteland.

But it was not to be perfect. His numerous aides and advisors grew power-hungry, and after many failed coups, several of them set up their own kingdoms in previously unexplored territory to the far east and north. Even his best friend and champion Valicav deserted him eventually, and Baraggan had no idea where he was now.

After Valicav's desertion, Baraggan's rule began to deteriorate. He learned that everyone in his kingdom weren't the righteous beings he initially thought they were. He was no longer concerned with improving conditions in Hueco Mundo, believing that society as a whole would fall apart because Hollows were such backstabbers.

And when he looked at Naruto and company, all he saw were his failures. He saw himself in Fuermos, the idealistic rambler concerned with righteousness no matter how unattainable it may be. He also saw Valicav in Naruto, the impulsive, sadistic maniac, who despite all his shortcomings was actually pleasant to be around when you were on his side.

But, three years seemed to be enough for them, and now it was time to put them in the arena. The king stood up, his personal guard flanking him as he stepped off the throne.

* * *

It's disturbing how much a mere three years can change someone. Being trapped in an old prison to stare at the place where you'll die gruesomely isn't something you'd want to do. Nevermind you don't know _when_ you're going there. The anxiety build-up from that is pure psychological horror.

Physically, they were alright. They were fed regularly, because the entertainment of the masses depended at their performance, and of course, they didn't need to sleep.

Naruto had changed the least. He was still brash, angry, and impulsive, but was more prone to fits of pure insanity. He spent most of his time staring at the arena, not fearing the place but torn between anxiety about going there and a desire to go there and rip everything to shreds.

Fuermos was gloomier and more bitter. His incarceration had caused him to lose some faith in the Hollow species, and although he still wished for change, most of the time he was sulking moodily in the corner and not speaking to anyone.

When Baraggan entered the prison, Fuermos was doing his usual sulking in the corner and Naruto was going through a fit of insane rage, rampaging all over in his cell. The other Hollows were silent.

He called his guards to the front, having them silence Naruto so he could speak. Fuermos looked up barely, looking at Baraggan through a half-lidded eye.

The king struck a royal pose flamboyantly, almost like the others Hollows didn't deserve to be in his presence.

"Hello, ants. I have graced you all with my presence today because. . ." He stopped suddenly mid-sentence, going up the front of Naruto's cell door. The fox focused his full attention on the king, glaring into Baraggan's soulless eyes.

"... it is time for your big debut," he whispered.

* * *

Chapter 5 is done! It's shorter than the rest of them, but this chapter finally concludes my "introductory" phase. From now on, there will be more action and more plot developments. So look forward to it!

In other news, once Chapter 6 is up, I will have edited the first chapters to make the quality a little better. I will tone done the OOC-ness, and try to make things a little more believable. However, re-reading it is _**NOT**_ necessary by any means, so this is really for the first-timers to my story. Also, this is not the only time I'll do doing this, so I'll let everyone know when I'll be doing it.

See you later,

_**Alban55**_


	6. El Estadio

Here's the next chapter! And like I promised, the first chapter has been edited to make for a little better reading. But it is not necessary to read, as the plot has not changed in the slightest.

**Warning!: **There's a little bit of graphic violence in this chapter, and although I don't believe it's particularly intense, it's enough to put up a warning for it.

Well, on with the chapter!

* * *

Chapter 6: El Estadio

The Arena was probably the single biggest abomination the greatest Las Noches' minds had created. It was over two thousand feet wide and five hundred feet high, more than three times the size of the Colosseum in Rome. Through unlike the Colosseum's cumuliform structure, the Arena was amorphous, making it appear like something straight out of a dream. It was lopsided and off-balance, with more material in certain areas, and it bended and twisted in an unnatural, goofy manner. Inside the arena, there were six-hundred thirty nine spikes along the sides, sixty seven cages that housed hordes of Hollows ready for battle, and twelve pitfall traps placed at various areas. Not to mention many other dastardly traps, hazards, and enemies.

Narutowoke up in the center of the arena, having been knocked unconscious and chained to prevent a struggle. Looking around, he could see rows upon rows of stone seats, rising hundreds of feet above the playing field. And almost every available space was packed with giddy, excited looking Hollows. From guards to plebeians, from Adjuchas to normal, every spectating Hollow in the place was able to form a bond of kinship with each other over the entertainment of the arena, no matter how different they may have seemed.

Baraggan of course stood at the apex of the arena, his lavish balcony setting him apart from the rest of the onlookers. He stood there with a look of regal contentment, appearing haughty yet happy about this turn of events.

Naruto noted that Fuermos and the others had not come to yet, and that the entire arena was focused in on him. And not just the spectators, as within the many cages around the bottom were many bulbous, black eyes that were filled with bloodlust. Not all the cages were the same size, and some looked large enough to hold Gillian, which Naruto noted with unease.

Before Naruto could contemplate what was behind the cages, a small, weak little Hollow even smaller than Naruto had wobbled its way over to Naruto's position. Naruto watched it warily, not taking his eyes off it even as it stopped about ten feet in front of him. It was so weak, but it had a smirk that was so arrogant, especially as it glared at Naruto.

The Hollow opened its mouth, and Naruto felt himself reel back. Its voice was so... loud! As it talked, its mouth moved in a perfectly circle fashion, almost like it was a megaphone.

"Ladies and gentlemen... Hollows and Adjuchas... Welcome, to the 55th Las Noches Arena Performance!" it started, its voice echoing to all corners of the arena. The crowd of Hollows didn't cheer, but instead cackled evilly at the prospect. Naruto moved even farther away; the thing's voice sounded like a circus barker with a sinus infection, and the jeers of the crowd were of many frequencies, from soprano to base, which mixed in a cacophony.

"Competing today in a spectacle of death and doom..." the announcer continued. "All the way from Sector 16 of the Menos Forest... are...

...the Forest! Losers!" The crowd snickered with barely repressed glee as the rest of the Hollows competing started to come to, and Naruto felt himself scowling, offended at the term.

"The forest losers have a roster of thirty-three normal Hollows and one Adjuchas." the announcer said, chuckling at the absurdly low number. The crowd jeered some more. "And they were taken here to participate after a ridiculous request to join the Las Noches army." More laughter.

"Since they are so tremendously motivated for combat, it wouldn't hurt to introduce them to their first wave of opponents," he said as one of the cages opened automatically. When it was done creaking open, the shadows that Naruto witnessed behind the cage began to step out into the open.

From within the cage emerged several hundred battle-ready Hollows, each with the Las Noches insignia tattooed on their bodies. Naruto thankfully noted that there weren't any Adjuchas or even Gillian in the group. He turned around and looked at his own group; they were painfully short in numbers.

Their enemies spread out in a circle around the group, and a particularly large one sauntered up to Naruto, jeering at him.

"The rules are simple. It's a fight to the death between the two sides, meaning there are no rules. Sneaky, underhanded tactics are permitted, and so is the use of the pitfall traps. The other gates can be opened at any time, forest losers, but I doubt there will really be the need for that," he said arrogantly. Naruto was getting angrier, but the rest of the group was too groggy to notice.

"And with King Baraggan-sama's consent, as well as a quick prayer to his godliness, the match will begin!" The announcer looked up towards his king, who nodded. The announcer bent down to pray, and the spectators and Las Noches competitors began to follow suit.

"We humbly thank our king and god, Baraggan Luisenbarn-sama, because we are nothing without His gloriousness. He is the reason for our life, our existence, and our livelihood. We happily follow the path He walks and eliminate any enemies He might have. We recognize that we will be nowhere near His power, but continue to follow Him because He is our god, our savior, and our light. Amen."

The Las Noche's Hollows said their prayer so synchronized that it may as well have been choreographed. Baraggan looked pleased, but Naruto looked disgusted.

It was pathetic how overly reliant they were on their king. First of all, the so-called prayer was more of a oath than anything, and the fact that Baraggan fancies himself a god and makes his subjects recite a prayer makes him far too arrogant in Naruto's eyes.

The announcer grinned. "With the prayer completed, we can move on to the main event." The announcer raised his arm in the air, almost as if it were a flag.

"BEGIN!"

* * *

As soon as the announcer said that word, the entire arena became eerily silent. The noises of the crowd diminished to nothing, which left the two competing sides staring each other down blankly. Fuermos and the others were getting to their feet, but all eyes were still focused on Naruto, his fierce expression unwavering even in the face of overwhelming odds.

Naruto's own black orbs were focused on the big Hollow in the center, who was equally staring him down. It was a fluorescent orange looking Hollow, humanoid in shape. Its mask was a withdrawn oblong square, stretching upwards almost like a crown. Its forearms were covered in a darker orange armor, and their were spikes jutting out from its ribcage. It wore nothing other than a small loincloth that covered where its unmentionables would've been.

"You will die for our god," it whispered so quietly that it might have been the wind. Naruto barely picked up on it, before the big Hollow disappeared from his view.

Naruto jolted upright, surprised at the sudden motion. The orange Hollow reappeared in his vision while tackling him, scattering the two Hollows away from the rest of the competitors. They landed in a heap about twenty feet away, the increased speed of the orange Hollow throwing them that far.

Naruto coughed up blood onto the other Hollow's body, a result of his opponent's immense weight and the spikes that were currently digging into him. He clumsily seized one of the spikes with his front paw, using the momentum to pull out the spike from his body as well as to break the one he was holding. The body spike was brittle enough to snap, and Naruto was left with a piece of it in his hand. The Hollow howled in pain, backing away from Naruto to go on the defensive.

About one hundred other Hollows had begun moving as well, immediately pinpointing the clustered group of enemy Hollows. They were about to attack the weaker Hollows of the group when Fuermos slid himself between the two forces, sliding himself into a bizarre stance as he did.

The Hollows didn't stop. Fuermos held out his pincers, putting one on top of the other. He warmed up the front side of his crystalline body parts to a far greater degree, angling the light so that it would only reach the incoming Hollows.

"Peligro," he said bitterly, signifying that he didn't want to do this. Immediately, about one-third of the Hollows present fell under the spell of Fuermos' light. Desperately, they hurried over to get closer to the light, most knocking over their comrades and getting knocked over themselves.

Fuermos' technique left nothing but a bunch of disorientated and confused Hollows on the ground. Fuermos wasted no time in taking advantage of their confusion, and with his powerful pincers began hacking and slashing away at the grounded Hollows, like a barbarian warrior in a bloodlust. Before anyone could even register what had happened, around fifty Hollow corpses lay on the ground. Fuermos stood off to the side, his head tilted down and a look of shame present on his face.

"Forgive me," whispered Fuermos to himself as the crowd hissed and booed at the display. The rest of the Hollows noticed what had happened to their fallen brothers, and the battle intensified as more Hollows entered the fray, two more gates being opened.

Clearly they had underestimated the power of the Adjuchas, because his superior combat abilities allowed him to kill many more Hollows. His ability to raise the morale of his comrades also played a role, especially compared to the Las Noches' Hollows who were simply doomed to march to their death.

Meanwhile, Naruto was still fighting the orange Hollow, who despite his pain had managed to go on the offensive. He was hitting Naruto with his huge fists, while the fox Hollow was attempting to block the powerful attacks with the piece of bone he held in his paw.

Naruto's superior combat abilities were too much for the Hollow, and Naruto was able to exploit an opening in the physically stronger, yet dumber Hollow's attack plan. As he did, he stood on his hind legs, his front ones doubling as arms. He blocked the Hollow's attack with his front paws, leaning forward as he did. He then shot his front legs up into the air, catching the orange Hollow in the chin of his mask. The mask cracked under the force, and the orange Hollow was pushed back a good distance.

Naruto whooped out a cruel laugh, before closing the distance between him and his opponent. He grabbed the fallen Hollow as he reached near, and with effort hoisted the Hollow over his head. He tossed the bulky Hollow into the air about ten feet before sticking his claws into the air. The big Hollow landed directly on them, gravity forcing the sharp nails to drive into his vital organs.

The skewered Hollow choked up orangish blood from its gullet, before it weakly raised its fist to lightly punch Naruto in the face. A tic appeared on Naruto's masked forehead.

"Go to hell!" he yelled as he flung the mortally wounded Hollow at an oncoming wave of fresh Hollows. Three Hollows were killed instantly under the weight, and the rest of the group was scattered by the obstacle.

His fight over, Naruto hurried towards the middle, thwarting two more surprise attacks by the Las Noches' Hollows. He stopped when he was back-to-back from Fuermos, both them and their group surrounded by oncoming Hollows. The boos of the crowd had started up again, and the competing Las Noches' Hollows laughed impishly at the cornered Hollows.

"What are the casualities on our side?" asked Naruto, as he kicked away an eager Hollow. The Hollows were getting more and more numerous, and he doubted Fuermos could protect them by himself.

"Three," replied Fuermos. "One by a pitfall trap, and two more by surprise attacks."

"'Dat so. Looks like we're going to have to watch out for the traps then. They seem dangerous."

Fuermos nodded. "This competition is really cruel. I can tell by looking that these Hollows are just as unwilling to fight here as we are. Nobody seems to care that their own countrymen are forced to put up with this. It's sickening."

Naruto frowned, his mind numb to Fuermos' words. He didn't care about this place any more, nor the Hollows that were forced into the competition. They would simply be slaughtered and he would move on.

"Well, whatever then. I don't give a crap about what they're doing here. We can't just fight them forever, you know. We need to find a way outta here before they bring out the Gillian and Adjuchas."

"Agreed," said Fuermos as he slit another throat. "But that could be a little difficult. Even if we manage to get out, there's still the fact that all of Las Noches will be looking for us."

Naruto looked at the small staircase the announcer had come down. "How 'bout we go into the crowd?" he said half-heartedly, trying to throw out an idea to Fuermos.

Fuermos nearly lost his balance after he heard that. That was the stupidest idea he had ever heard. "Are you out of your mind? Half of the onlookers in that crowd are trained Las Noches soldiers. We'd be slaughtered before we even knew it. Not to mention Baraggan is up there."

Another Hollow of their group squealed as blood gushed forth from its jugular vein. This was bad. Their opponents seemed to be rising in combat ability, and with that more of their number would die.

"It was just a suggestion, god," snapped Naruto. He was getting pretty tired of Fuermos' regular mood swings.

A pitfall trap activated and pulled a Las Noches' Hollow into the underworld. Naruto stared cryptically at it for a moment, appearing to be in deep thought. There was a loud thud after a few seconds, but that wasn't what Naruto was concerned about. His brain was getting an interesting idea.

He had to be snapped out of his reverie by a heavy blow from his Adjuchas friend.

"What are you doing? You can't just space out randomly in the middle of a battle," Fuermos chided him. The Adjuchas was getting pretty sick of Naruto's reckless and immature behavior. Naruto didn't look bothered by that, surprisingly.

"Hey, Fuermos, I need to check something out, so you'll have to cover for the rest while I'm gone," said Naruto. Without even giving him time to react, the fox speedily rushed away from the fight. Fuermos' words were pounding in his ears, but he paid them no mind.

More and more gates were opening, and with that more pitfall traps were activating. Naruto weaved his way through the mass of Hollows. They tried to attack him, but his speed and agility was too great for them, and he slipped by easily.

He heard Fuermos yell at him from a distance, and looking back he saw the horde of Hollows focus their attention on Fuermos instead of him. He grinned uneasily, before sprinting up to a spot where he remembered the pitfall was. He'd make a note to apologize to Fuermos later.

He pushed on the floor with his front paw, the pitfall yielding easily under the weight. The tan floor opened to an expanse of black darkness, no bottom visible in sight. Naruto grit his teeth; there was no way to see the bottom. But with their situation, they might have to chance it.

He rushed back over the Fuermos, who was working extra hard to protect the group. "I may have just found our ticket out," said Naruto reproachfully, knowing how Fuermos was when it came to taking risks.

"Well, we'd better make it quick, because I don't know how much longer we can last here," replied Fuermos. Indeed, this was true. Almost half of their group had been killed now, some of the bolder Hollows taking on competition they couldn't handle. Fuermos himself had no wounds on his person, but the death of his comrades was leaving him surly.

"Got it. Now... here's what we do," Naruto whispered, so they other Hollows couldn't pick up on his words.

Fuermos shook his head ruefully. "That has got to be the most reckless, stupid, and childish plan I have ever heard in my life. Just the sheer odds against us is so mind-blowing that I can't-" he was cut off in his rambling by a brutal slash that traced his back. He gingerly stepped over a corpse to Naruto.

"But I guess we don't have any choice. Fine, we'll go along with your plan. I just hope you know what you're doing on this," he sighed. Naruto grinned, patting the wound on Fuermos' back, prompting the insect to curse him out.

"Yeah, yeah. Just don't worry about it. I'll be back in a while." Before he could get anywhere, two large Hollows, almost twice the size of Naruto blocked his path. There were big, ghoulish grins on their faces, and they laughed uproariously when Naruto came to a halt in front of them.

"Hey, hey, where do you think you're going, little Hollow?" mocked the one on the left. It was abnormally thin, with a deep green color and a creepy child molester's smile on its mask.

"The Hollows you've faced before were small time. Now that we're out don't think that you'll leave here alive," said the one on the right. It had an old likeness to Chouji, with it's rotund body and squished face.

Both Hollows were arrogant, and something told Naruto that they didn't have the capabilities they claimed to have. This was just stupid; he didn't have time for these idiots.

Naruto glared up at them, a cold anger present in his eyes. "Move," he said simply. He turned back to Fuermos and the cold look was wiped clean off his mask. "Sorry, looks like I'll be delayed a bit. Try and get everyone left to hold out a little while longer."

"Now see here, you're about to die, so where do you think you get off making dema-"

"I said move." The look was back. Fuermos looked on in bewilderment, concern etched all over his face for the seemingly bipolar Hollow. He'd never seen Naruto like this before; his fury seemed to reverberate throughout the entire arena as the crowd fell silent from their usual taunting.

A tic appeared on the thin Hollow's face. "You... don't blame us when you die!" its shrill voice yelled as both Hollows lunged at Naruto. Naruto stared at the attack motionlessly, before a sick smile creeped its way onto Naruto's canine visage.

Naruto moved forward at their attack, and after what seemed like an eternity, crouched in between the two oncoming Hollows. He grabbed both of their limbs, and with a strong push, overpowered them and sent them both crashing into the ground.

"You were so full of openings that it made me want to laugh. And you two call the other Hollows small time," he hissed. Another Hollow attempted to save the two grounded Hollows, but he was gutted by Naruto who hadn't even looked away from the now frightened pair.

"You know, I don't take very kindly to folks who get in the way of my goal," mused Naruto, as he sucked the delicious blood off his paws. "I tend to brutalize my victims beyond recognition when that happens. Oh, I have a problem don't I?" Naruto lightly began dragging his claws along his own face, before putting them at his victim's necks.

"And I course enjoy every minute of it."

Fuermos looked at Naruto, his breath hitching in his lungs. Was that really Naruto? While he knew Naruto could be brutal, he always believed that he was doing it for the sake of justice. He always believed that Naruto wanted to destroy the Shinigami so he could lead the Hollow species to a new golden age.

But maybe he was doing it all for the sake of his own, misguided revenge. You shouldn't enjoy killing, and yet Naruto was talking like a sadist, relishing in his victim's fear and defeat. Had he really misjudged the young Hollow so severely? If he did, why was he darting around the arena, doing his damnedest to keep the other Hollows from reaching Naruto?

"People like you should just die for my sake," continued Naruto. That was the icing on the cake. That selfish little line had just confirmed it for him.

Naruto paid no attention to the fact that his monologue was being overheard by Fuermos. He was too absorbed in his own gruesome business. He grabbed the pudgy Hollow's flabby wrist, and promptly snapped it as if it were a twig.

The Hollow's thick skin gave him nothing in this situation, and the fat Hollow cried out in pain. He turned to see his partner screaming in rage at Naruto, who then gave him a sadistic smile and broke his wrist as well.

He grabbed two more Hollows that were trying to attack him, and casually ripped both their arms off. Ignoring the shower of blood and the screaming Hollows, he tossed the detached limbs onto his victim's laps.

"Eat it," he said simply. "Eat the flesh of your own comrades."

The Hollows seemed to brighten at this remark, and with gusto they began happily eating the arms of their bretheren. Naruto scowled when one laughed, feeling humiliation seep into his pores. The crowd was laughing, and although it may not have necessarily been at him, it sure felt like it.

He smacked the severed arms away, and the two Hollows looked up at him in protest. "This is getting us nowhere. But before I kill you, I want to see your expressions of agony," he said, as he reached down and placed his paw on their masks...

Fuermos turned around to look at Naruto when he heard a shocked gasp come from all places. The Hollows in the crowd and on the field were seemingly petrified with... what? It wasn't fear... it seemed more like disbelief. Even Baraggan looked stunned. He turned and...

Holy fuck, was he seeing this right? There stood Naruto, a lone pillar standing confidently in the distance. There were two Hollows masks in his hand, cleanly ripped off. He looked down at his victims and gasped. Faces... _human_ faces.

He seriously _had_ misjudged the fox. He had just committed the worst act a Hollow could do, and he was _smiling_ about it. Even other Hollows had some dignity, and would never stoop so low to do that.

Naruto turned back to Fuermos, smiling. Not a malicious smile, but a happy smile. His demeanor had changed in an instant, and Fuermos was amazed at how much his mood could shift in a day.

"Sorry for the delay, Fuermos. I'll get right on with it," he said, waving happily at his friend. He turned back to the maskless Hollows, his image changing yet again. The agony looked ten times worse with a human face, and if he had to be frank it almost turned him on.

He thrust his hands into their abdomens, taking hold of their intestines. Their faces widened and contorted in expressions of pure pain, and it served Naruto all the better. He twisted the organs, almost as if they were shoelaces, and he even crossed them over each other. He finally ripped them out, and all three of them spasmed.

Most of the Hollows were watching him amazed, with some even turning away. "_If you can disgust even other Hollows then you know you've got to be pretty depraved_," thought Fuermos as he viewed the scene.

Naruto left the two Hollows there to bleed to death, when he spotted his target. It was a regular Hollow about his size, with distinctive mole features. A stubbly face, large claws even bigger than his, a brown earthy color, and terrible eyesight. It, like the rest of the Hollows, was simply staring at him, reeling from the sight of what he just did.

It didn't really notice his presence until he was about fifteen feet away, and it nearly bolted when it did notice him. Naruto placed his paw on the mole's shoulder, his rank breath agony to the poor Hollow.

"I need you to do something for me," he whispered so only the mole could hear it. The mole's fear then dissolved into anger, and its violent shaking could be felt by the despicable Hollow in front of him.

"Like I'd do anything for you, you filthy Hollow. In fact, I'll be the one to exterminate your filthiness for Baraggan-sama."

Naruto dodged a swipe from the large claws. "Who said you had a choice in the matter." Naruto went in with in his own claws, but much to his surprise, he found them stopped by the other Hollow's own claws. The two sets of claw met with a clang, the nails becoming tangled in with each other. The mole's claws were dangerously close to his face, so he tilted his head back before using his free front paw to go in for another strike. Much to his chagrin, those were also stopped in the same method.

"Filth! FFIIIIIILLLLLLTHHHHHHH! There shall be no filth in our Holy God's perfect kingdom." The mole was screaming like a lunatic, screaming random words and praises towards Baraggan.

"You believe that king of yours is so holy. After he forced you into this place. What a fool you are." said Naruto, his penetrating yellow eyes staring into the mole's soul.

"S-Shut up, filthy, vile fiend. You have no right to say that after what you did," the mole yelled, bringing up his clawed feet in a lethal kick. The claws caught the torso all up to Naruto's mask, leaving a shallow gash wound.

Naruto moved back, releasing his hold on the mole's claws. The mole, seeing the opportunity, slashed Naruto's other side with his now free claws. The result was a much deeper and much longer slashing wound.

The crowd cheered, and Naruto jumped away from the Hollow, hissing in pain. This mole Hollow could be a little tricky. There were several attempts to go assist the mole Hollow, but they were all stopped by Fuermos and his groupies. That was good, he didn't need any interference.

"Bastard, I was going to leave you in decent working condition. But now, I feel like getting a little brutal," cried Naruto angrily, clutching his wound gingerly. It became covered in blood. The mole grinned at him for the first time.

"_He's weaker than I thought. That's good; I might be able to finish this_,"

"There'll be no need for that, filth. Because you're about to die here anyway. Cámara Subterráneo!." With those words, the mole used his sharp claws to burrow underneath the ground, becoming only visible through the moving pile of dirt.

Naruto became giddy. This was just the confirmation he needed; the mole would do perfectly for the escape plan. But he would have to be careful with this attack. The mole was a quick digger, and he seemed to know the exact location of the various pitfall traps. He jumped to the side as the oncoming dirt crossed his path. But, quick as a flash, the mole turned at a sharp, right angle. He was coming into direct contact with Naruto.

"_Shi-_!" he screamed in his mind as a strong paw gripped his back right ankle. The crowd watched in fascination as Naruto futilely attempted to escape, only to be effortlessly pulled underneath the dirt.

Being dragged underground was not a pleasant experience for Naruto. High friction and particles of dirt were getting into his wounds, making them sting horrendously. Clods of dirt managed to find their way into his mouth, and when he tried to spit them out more dirt just went in.

Overall, he was dragged about fifty feet underground, before falling into a surprisingly wide chamber. It was about forty feet in length and height, the only light source coming dimly from the large hole where he was dragged down.

"Do you like it, filth. This is my Cámara Subterráneo. It lets me fight the way I like it, and it puts you at a heavy disadvantage," said a voice from behind him. It was obviously the mole, of course, but the strong darkness here made it difficult for him to discern where his opponent was.

He was cut off in his thoughts by a slash to his back. The sneaky little bastard was playing dirty, eh? Well, he could do that too. The fox panned his head around, looking for any sign of the mole.

"It's no use, filth. Your over reliance on your eyesight make it impossible for you to grasp where I am. Whereas I, spending a lot of my time underground, know exactly where you are right now. So just sit back and let me kill you. It will make it a lot easier for the both of us."

Another slash to the shoulder. Naruto blanched from it, flying back into the dirt wall. A little bit of dirt fell onto Naruto's head, and the whole chamber caved in on itself a small bit. Naruto grinned despite his injuries; he just got a good idea.

"Don't you dare grin, you filth!" screeched the mole Hollow as it sped directly as Naruto. Naruto continued to smile; this sure was a stupid Hollow. Didn't he realize he could locate the Hollow by sound if it talked to him. Apparently not.

Reflexively, Naruto turned around and forcefully grabbed the Hollow's mask, slamming the mole Hollow into the ground. The mole Hollow struggled futilely under the stronger Hollow, desperately searching for a way out.

"Ya know, even if I killed you now, I'd never be able to find a way out of this hole. I'm not much of a digger see, so you're going to have to burrow me out of here," said Naruto in a pleasant tone, even if it held nothing but mirth and hatred underneath the exterior.

The mole Hollow grinned nervously. "And why would I do that? My claws are still free, so I've still got the advantage. You need me, so you can't kill me!"

Naruto was unphased by the news. He calmly raised his back foot, before kicking the dirt wall behind him forcefully. There was a large rumble from above them, and more dirt fell down from the earthen ceiling. The smile slowly disappeared from the mole's face.

"That's why. If you don't burrow us out of here, I'll collapse this place," said Naruto. The mole looked like he was about to say something, but his mouth was covered by Naruto's paw.

"Look, this is a demand. When I say you're going to get me outta here, you say "yes". You understand?"

The mole nodded, panicking sadness appearing underneath it's mask. "_I'll just pretend to bring him back up there. Then I'll leave him when I get the chance."_

Naruto hoisted the mole up, pointing his sharp claws at his neck. "If you even think about betraying me, I'll kill you so fast that you won't even know what's coming," he whispered. Comedic tears rolled out of the mole's mask.

So Naruto's hostage began to work, burrowing his way out of the chamber. It was slower than normal because he was forced to stand in an upright position, because of the claws pointed at his necks.

"One false move..." Naruto warned, as he ran his claws across the mole's neck. Enough to draw blood, but not enough to kill.

* * *

Baraggan didn't know what to think about this display in the arena. On one hand, he was angry and ashamed at his vassals because they were failing to kill this puny little group of Hollows. Not to mention there was that unspeakable act performed by that fox Hollow that had him shaking in pure rage. On the other hand, he was feeling ecstatic. Not many performances in the arena lasted for over an hour, and yet this one was lasting for almost two and still going.

But, he was starting to the competition for these Hollows wasn't big enough. The Adjuchas in the group was darting all over the place, slitting throats and generally not allowing anyone to touch his friends. And that fox Hollow was no slouch, either. The Adjuchas kept other Hollows from attacking him, but in a one-on-one fight no one had managed to best him in battle yet.

Then, he saw the mole Hollow spring into action against the fox. At first, it looked like the mole was winning, administering several injuries to the fox Hollow, as well as capturing it with his technique. But that all changed when the mole Hollow resurfaced, the fox Hollows claws directly on his neck. The fox Hollow promptly knocked out the mole, and that was when Baraggan felt his ire rising.

"SEND OUT THE GILLIAN!" the king screamed, his obnoxious voice carrying over to all the arena. The entire arena froze. Fuermos stared up at the king in almost fear; if Gillian were involved then their chances of survival were now far more slim. The Hollows in the crowd were silent for a moment, before their voices rose to a new level of cheering and laughter. Gillian fighting was a rare treat for them, so they were surely ecstatic. One by one, five enormous gate placed at various points in the arena opened. They were far too big for a normal Hollow, so something of that size could only hold. . .

Gillian. There they were, coming out now. Black-cloaked and huge, they clumsily lumbered their way out of the gates, stupidly looking around the entire arena. They all had identical masks, not even one unique mask among them. There were about 30-40 of them in total, and they all began to mill around the center of the arena. One got it's foot caught in a pitfall, but it was much too big to fall into that trap.

Naruto and the mole had just resurfaced. Naruto opportunistically knocked out the mole as soon as he had finished his job, and placed him to the side. Naruto heard Baraggan's order, and was almost floored by it. The Gillian were coming out, and that wasn't good for them. Fuermos may be able to defend everyone against normal Hollows, but there was no way he could handle forty Gillian all by himself.

The Gillian were congregating in the center; what were they doing? They seemed to be swaying in a back and forth motion, not particularly concentrated on one particular thing. The one closest to him was opening it's mouth slowly, and the rest followed that example short after.

A small ball of red had appeared in the Gillian's mouth, slowly gathering more and more energy towards the spherical center. A strange hissing noise come from the ball, almost like it was about to explode.

Naruto's eyes widened. "_Oh, shit."_

The Gillian released their Ceros at the same time, the beams of energy going all over the arena. The light was blinding to everyone in the arena, and for a moment no one could see anything.

The Ceros cleared, and the destruction was unbelievable. Every Hollow in the arena except for Fuermos, Naruto, and the mole had been obliterated. Not even the Las Noches' Hollows had been spared, and they too had been atomized along with Naruto's group.

"Holy shit," said Naruto as he viewed the charred landscape. There weren't even burnt bodies hanging around; everyone had just been vaporized. Only Fuermos had survived, the speed of the Adjuchas allowing him to dodge. Naruto himself had survived by hanging on the ledge to the hole he had just climbed out of, holding the unconscious mole Hollow in one hand. He shuddered when he thought of what would have happened if he were up there.

But he was barely in a better situation. Here he was, hanging for dear life on an unstable ledge whose fall would mean 100 feet down. He couldn't go up and fight; that would be just plain suicide.

Naruto strained his mind, thinking of what he could do. There had to be something he could do to face those Gillian. But what? What? He came to a sudden realization, nearly falling from the surprise. A wide grin split on his face; he knew _exactly_ what to do.

He began swinging himself back and forth to gain momentum, the mole Hollow flapping about in his grasp. Once he had gained enough, he let loose a powerful attack to the side of the dirt wall.

The instability of the rare Hueco Mundo soil gave way under a few more kicks. The dirt flowed down the hole, and after a short time, there was a small platform that Naruto could safely drop down on and be relatively safe from attack.

Once he dropped down, he checked the small entrance to be sure no Gillian could spot him. It seemed okay, plus everyone would think that he would have died from that last attack. He sat down criss-cross on the dirt platform, closing his eyes as he did.

He felt the cold Hueco Mundo breeze enter his pores, as well as the rough dirt floor. His mind focused on one thing, he blocked out all sensory distractions and earthly worries and slipped into a pure, blissful thought process.

His breathing slowed, and for probably the first time since his death he was completely calm. He even forget about where he was for a short time.

Some time during the experience, the ground changed from the earthy dirt to a cold puddle of water. He opened his eyes, seeing the all too familiar sewer around him. But, there was something different about it this time.

The walls around him had changed from the rustic khaki he remembered to an almost midnight black. The knee-deep water now came up to his waist, and it was no longer clear, cool, and refreshing.

It was now a deep, murky red, and it could be as cold as arctic water. Pipes and doors still lined the hallway, yet they now seemed more deteriorated and water-damaged than before. The more he walked down the hallway, the more the place unnerved him. While before it gave off a vibe of mysterious warmth. Now it was colder, eviller. This was now nothing more than a madhouse for the insane.

He noticed a door, more deteriorated and water-damaged than the rest. It was in a location at the end of the hall, and a strange unearthly glow emitted from it, creating a solitary globe of warmth in this dank, forsaken sewer. He walked up to the door, hypnotized by the entrancing light. The door opened with a creak, and Naruto had just reached his destination.

He finally had reached the familiar wide chamber he was searching for. But, it was different. The Kyuubi's cage was still there, but it was smaller, and the seal and bars seemed to fade in and out of existence. The water had disappeared, and gave way to a floor with a chessboard pattern, sort of like one you would see in a grand palace. Numerous paintings lined the walls, and disturbingly they were all pictures of him. On the left side was the picture of the human him, painted with mostly whites and blues. All of the pictures showed him smiling, and he appeared to be a symbol of purity. But he was cartoonish and cubistic in this picture, almost like the painter was trying to say that this beautiful, pure being was nothing but an illusion.

On the right side showed the rage-filled Hollow he was today. Those paintings were painted with nothing but blacks and reds, and he was always a symbol of evil, which was a stark contrast to the pure human that was shown on the other side. Conversely, these paintings were done very realistically, like the painter was trying to show the reality of the situation.

A red aura, followed by a demonic presence drew his attention from the paintings to the Kyuubi's cage. The red aura made it difficult for Naruto to breathe, as the red chakra turned reiatsu slithered into his pores, filling his very being with the essence of the Kyuubi.

A deep bone-chilling voice brought him to his senses. "**My jailer finally decides to visit me for the first time since his death. And I thought you were too wrapped up in your thoughts of revenge to pay me any mind. I'm flattered**," said the Kyuubi mockingly. The full body of the fox came into view, his large face grinning at Naruto. The fox had changed little since it's death. It was still the same size and shape, and the only noticeable difference was the increased amount of hatred in it's eyes, most likely as a result of it's death along with Naruto's.

Naruto said nothing back, focusing his eyes mistfully on the checkered floor.

"**So. . . what brings you here, then?**" asked the deep baritone voice of the Kyuubi.

Naruto slowly brought his head up to meet the gaze of the other fox.

"I'm here. . . to kill you."

* * *

Finished! Hallelujah!

So the Kyuubi finally appears in my story! I'll bet some of you were waiting for that! And with Kyuubi's appearance comes a special surprise that I will reveal for you wonderful folks next Chapter!

Translations and other features.

Peligro: Hazard

Cámara Subterráneo: Underground Chamber

That's all for this Chapter, everyone. I'll see you all next time, then!

_**Alban55**_


	7. La Sala de Emociones

Here's Chapter 7, ladies and germs. Hope you enjoy it! And, please review!

**Disclaimer: **If I had one wish, it would be to own Naruto and Bleach. But since I don't have one wish. . . you get the picture.

* * *

Chapter 7: La Sala de Emociones

"**Kill me?**" the Kyuubi asked, sounding faintly amused. Its sadistic and arrogant nature would never allow Kyuubi to believe it could actually be killed.

An awkward, tense silence ran through the halls for a good twenty seconds. Naruto disturbingly thought the paintings on the walls were vaguely staring at him accusingly, as if he were proclaiming an impossible idea. He straightened and stared up at the great beast blankly, as if he were expecting its passing amusement.

A dark, powerful chuckle from the demon broke the silence. This was a delicate situation, and Kyuubi was taking no mind to that.

"**Such an impudent little brat. You wish to kill me? Me, of all things. After all the things I've done for you? Who's the one who has always saved you all these years. Who's the one who gave you power when you needed it. Why me, of course!" **the Kyuubi paused for a moment.

**"But I guess I shouldn't act so surprised. After all, you've always been an ungrateful little shit. Why should that change simply because we died?"**

Naruto continued to stare, the first little flecks of anger seeping into his expression from the Kyuubi's bristling comments. He then turned away to look at the deteriorating seal, not wanting to appeared bothered by the Kyuubi's remarks.

"Don't act all high and mighty with me, fox. From the looks of things the seal is deteriorating. How long would it have been before you're free and you attempt to kill me, hmm?" responded Naruto.

More laughter from the Kyuubi.

"**It seems you have gained some intelligence since your little dance with death. Yes, the seal is still intact, despite the premise that I was to disappear from your subconscious and reappear on the landscape in about one-hundred years after your death.**"

"Then, you didn't take what my father said into account. I believe he meant for us to die together."

The Kyuubi sighed, an almost shameful somberness appearing in his tone of voice. "**That is unfortunately true. The Yondaime's seal was stronger than I anticipated, and instead of being thrust back into the living world, I instead remain sealed in you while existing in an afterlife that I honestly didn't expect_."_**

The larger fox said nothing for a moment, before it spoke again, now with a tone of sinister happiness.

"**However, your father's talent with sealing wasn't perfect. True to what you said, the seal is indeed weakening, likely as a result of this abrupt change from chakra to this reiryoku, as you call it. No seal can completely handle such an abrupt change, and then of course there's the matter of the change in energy. It appears to me that reiryoku isn't as strong a binding agent as chakra is. Its hold on the seal has several weak points at many places, causing the seal itself to structurally break down before our very eyes."**

The Kyuubi laughed again, this time one of malicious delight at the prospect. "**Very soon the seal will break down completely, and I will be free to resume my place and wreak havoc on this new world again as I please. This time, when no blasted shinobi to hinder my progress."**

It was Naruto's turn to laugh now. That statement was just so idiotic to him that he couldn't help it.

"Oh, get over yourself, Kyuubi. I'll admit it, you have power. Power that I need. But the afterlife has a lot more powerful beings than those in life. More powerful beings than you realize. You're not a force of nature anymore; just a very big Hollow. Your reiatsu is that of only a Gillian to a low-level Adjuchas, and your power is nowhere near enough to be able to do as you please. If you tried that you'd be annihilated instantly."

That seemed to strike a nerve.

Kyuubi directed actual hot, burning fury at Naruto, rather than the cold anger he usually sent his way. It seems that the comment had really gotten under the Kyuubi's skin. After all, centuries of being at the top, and then being told that you weren't powerful anymore. It had to be at least a little touchy.

_**"**_**Silence, you insolent little brat! This seal will be off soon enough and when that happens, I'll rip you to shreds! And I will _personally_ go and bring destruction on this new world. That I guarantee! The beings in this world are nothing compared to me! Nothing, you understand!_" _**the Kyuubi roared, its voice carrying with it a cataclysmic torrent that would've bowled over a human.

Naruto stood his ground though, and wasn't even phased by the fury of the Kyuubi. In fact, he looked downright pleased by the reaction, as if he had succeeded at getting a rise out of a little kid instead of a 100-meter tall monster.

"So then... why don't I just hasten the process for the both of us." The fox Hollow slowly walked up to the weakened seal, vaguely aware of the Kyuubi's eyes narrowing menacingly at his approach. He smiled slyly, much to the confusion of the Kyuubi. But the fox remained silent, mulling over whether it was a trick or not.

"Don't think about it too hard, Kyuubi. I said before that I was going to kill you. I can't exactly do that if you're still locked up in that cage, now can I?" asked Naruto rhetorically.

The larger fox grinned evilly. "**It seems you're eager for your own death." **

Naruto said nothing, and only split his face into a sinister grin that mirrored the Kyuubi's own. Though his grin was for an entirely different purpose. He approached the cage, and with a monumental slowness that emphasized suspense, lifted his front, right paw and raised it to the cage.

He was stopped.

By a long, tanned arm that came out of nowhere and strongly grasped the Hollow's wrist.

Naruto continued to stare blankly at the fox, his mouth slightly ajar in pure annoyed disbelief. He hadn't looked towards the owner of arm, but he had a feeling he wouldn't like who it was.

"_Oh fuck, not again..._" were his annoyed thoughts, as he thought back to the similar situation to this when he was alive. He looked up; the Kyuubi looked pissed, kind of like Christmas was cancelled. It was the same expression it wore when his father had showed up in his mind. One of angry recognition.

Naruto looked to his left, and to his surprise it _wasn't _his father. It was... him? A human form of him that was dressed in the robes of the detestable Shinigami? What a cliché development.

Naruto and the Kyuubi stared at the other Naruto with a slight amount of anger. The other Naruto stared back at them with a calm serenity that didn't belay any opinion or emotions towards either of them.

"I'm afraid I can't let you do that," the new Naruto said. His voice was lighter and more whimsical, but it was essentially the same voice as Naruto when he was alive. Just another thing to chalk up on the list of similarities.

"**You... what are _you_ doing here?**" asked the Kyuubi. Naruto looked back at the fox, the look on his face questioning.

"What's going on here? Who is he?" he asked the Kyuubi.

The Kyuubi gave a low, angry growl. "**He's...**"

"I am what you should have been, Naruto," said the Shinigami, cutting off the Kyuubi's speech pattern. Naruto glared in response to that, not exactly keen on being a Shinigami. A faint look of smug disappointment passed by the other Naruto's face for only a split second, though it was long enough for Naruto to see it.

"What do you mean?" asked Naruto.

"I'm not obligated to explain that to you. Just be assured that I'm here to help you."

"Help me? What makes you think you need to help me? Killing has never been so much fun for me! Now that I'm a Hollow, I don't have to worry about the village sending Hunter-nin or anything after me. I can do whatever I want!" said Naruto with glee.

"So it's true. Becoming a Hollow really has twisted your mind," whispered the other Naruto to himself. "It looks like I'll have to do this the hard way," he said louder, slowly putting his hand on the hilt of his Zanpakutou.

Naruto's eyes widened. A zanpakutou?

"Why the hell do you have one of those things?" asked Naruto.

The other Naruto raised the gleaming katana to his face, so that it was partially obscured by the blade.

"I told you, I'm what you should of been. You, Naruto, when you died you should've went through Konsou and entered Soul Society, where you should've become a Shinigami and exterminated more Hollows than any other. You were going to become Sou-Taichou!." The last part came out as a yell.

Naruto leaned back a bit. "Heh, that sounds kind of like my old dream of being Hokage."

"That's exactly what I meant. If you had become a Shinigami, we would've worked hard to become Sou-Taichou. We would've gained the respect of every last Shinigami there, just as we always wished for! We would protect Konoha, the village you loved, from Hollows dutifully. You could become happy again, and live a full life in Soul Society! You don't have to turn to the path of revenge and hatred. Just let me help you!" said the other Naruto in yet another attempt to end this without violence.

Naruto stood hunched over from the proclamation, his sides shaking violently. The other Naruto smiled happily, believing that he had finally gotten through to the Hollow. That is, before Naruto stood up, reared back his head, and laughed uproariously.

"That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard! I don't give a fuck about the recognition of others anymore," he paused for a moment to stare mockingly at the other Naruto.

"Now I just want them to DIE!"

The Shinigami stared at the Hollow, his mouth slightly agape. "So it's true. You really have gone off the deep end since becoming a Hollow. Fortunately for you, this is just the cause of you becoming a Hollow, Naruto. I can easily rectify that," he said, closing his mouth as a look of determination set itself upon his face.

Hollow Naruto gave a hearty smirk. "Just try it, fake me. You're just another Shinigami I need to slaughter."

Inwardly, Naruto was very proud of himself. The offer was scarily tempting, and the thought of going back to his human psyche was honestly frightening to him. But in a way, if he was able to resist and triumph over his other self, he would finally have killed off his humanity. Quite literally.

He was already during more cruel and vile things. His conscience had disappeared with his Hollow transformation, and he found himself more and more immersed in his evil joy and wonderful ambitions. It was... effortless. If this thing won, he would be dragged back into the light, and with it he would lose his sense of... happiness. He would once again feel... pain. The pain of betrayal. There was a tender bit of happiness, yes, but it was fleeting. Before long, you will be betrayed by those you love and plunged into the depths of pure despair and hopelessness. That wasn't pure happiness.

This was pure happiness. This honest-to-god fighting and destruction didn't wear the mask called betrayal. It was always brutally honest and right in your face. If someone betrays you, kill them, without mercy. Useless feelings like love and compassion never get in the way as they do on the "good" side. You could never kill without feeling those emotions.

"Your existence as a Hollow is a mistake, Naruto. If I can slay you with this Zanpakutou, I can take control of our body and set us on the right path. I'm a part of you, Naruto. Why can't you see I'm doing this for our sake!" he asked hysterically, as his first Zanpakutou strike was blocked by Naruto's claws.

Naruto pivoted, trying to hit the other Naruto with his tail. "Our sake? What a crock of shit. The only thing I want is to continue on with what was doing. I don't want to be set on the so-called right path."

To be honest, the other Naruto was not surprised by this kind of response. A small part of him was actually disappointed. He wanted Naruto to willingly choose to come back to the right path. He had extended to him this chance to make it all right. Doing it by force, while somewhat effective, would never have the same results as coming willingly.

These were his thoughts as he rapidly slashed down his Zanpakutou on the Hollow. The tip of the blade caught the Hollow's mask and made a shallow cut on it, but otherwise caused little damage to the abomination.

"You're open!" shouted Naruto, as he darted along the floor of the chamber to reach the other Naruto. He fanned his single tail outward, the momentum and force attempted to drill a hole in it's opponent.

Naruto's eyes widened when he felt his tail go straight through the other Naruto. A hazy distortion sprung up in front of the disturbed area, before the misty substance returned to the main body.

A disoriented Naruto flew forward, prompting the other Naruto to to take the opportunity to go for the killing blow, a downward slash across the mask. At the last second, Naruto impulsively moved, barely avoiding the fatal blow. He was not able to avoid a nasty slash across his side, though.

The Hollow landed on his feet clumsily, clutching his wound as soon as he was grounded. He inhaled precious air heavily, turning his back away from the Kyuubi and the other Naruto.

"SHIT!"

Naruto took off down the hallway leading away from the Kyuubi's cage as soon as he had recovered, his blood dripping from the wound and mixing with the murky water. Water rippled from beneath him and the other Naruto and Kyuubi continued to hear splashing even after Naruto had turned the corner.

The other Naruto blinked at the spontaneous retreat, before he followed up with a quiet, accusatory yell. No one ran away from him.

"W-Wait!" he called after Naruto, running after the Hollow and stupidly waving his sword around in the air like a madman.

The Kyuubi almost sweatdropped.

"**Same old idiots."**

* * *

The halls and passageways echoed with the yells and screams of the two Narutos as the Shinigami one chased after the Hollow one. The Hollow had the advantage in speed, as well as better traction in water, so the slow, two-legged Shinigami was left in the dust.

Panting, the Shinigami Naruto cursed. The Hollow Naruto was a slippery one. Dishonorable too; he probably had some nasty tricks in store for him along the way. Of course, none of them would work due to his condition, but they would still be an annoyance.

True to this thoughts, he heard a door creak slightly to his left from around the corner. He raised his Zanpakutou, and with a carefree zeal he sauntered on over and rounded the corner confidently.

A waterlogged wooden door, danker and damper than the rest stood slightly ajar at the end of the hall. It was almost completely black in there, dim light from the hall filtering in from the cracked door. The other Naruto eased towards the door, wary of what lied ahead, despite his intangibility.

An odd look of distant recognition entered the human Naruto's eyes. "_But, this room is..." _A look of knowing went across his face.

He smiled. "_Perhaps I can get through to him after all."_

He came around to the front of the doorway, passing a missing, gloomy lantern whose absence caused a disarray in the usually uniform row of lighting. The Shinigami opened the door with a wide creak, viewing a seemingly never-ending void of darkness save for the little sliver of light coming from the outside.

He heard footsteps in the dark; Naruto was shuffling around quite a bit in here. Being a creature of darkness, he would be much more well-suited for hiding in some. The noises stopped, and for a tense moment, absolutely nothing happened.

And then, a lantern flew from the darkness towards the Shinigami. The other Naruto was caught off-guard by the sudden action, but he was saved by his own intangibility. The lantern shattered on the ground. Pieces of glass flew throughout the air and the candle that should've lit his robes on fire died out, and his robes were unsinged.

The other Naruto smirked. "Sorry, but fire doesn't work on me, Naruto, so I'm not gonna die anytime soon."

There came a voice from the darkness. "So it would seem. What a shame." The voice was smooth and mocking, but there was a slight amount of panic in its tone.

"Don't beat yourself up over it. My mental state is just far more stable and healthy than yours. You are a Hollow, after all."

There came nothing but silence from the darkness, so the other Naruto used this as an opportunity to continue.

"You know, this is technically my mind as well. I don't think you realized this, but an individual's mindscape can be shaped to their liking to a certain extent. There are many things that are unchangeable, but there are things that are. Like... this."

The other Naruto stood there effortlessly as the entire room lit up in the time span of a second. The Hollow Naruto was standing about twenty feet away, fittingly looking like a deer caught in headlights.

The Shinigami Naruto smiled cheekily. "Found ya."

The lit room's appearance was very interesting. The stone brick that made up the walls and floor had changed color to a harsh, charcoal black. Both Narutos were actually standing on some kind of scaffolding, with a large circular area in the center below them surrounded by guardrails. Down in the pit, there were roughly thirty of these square, black objects. It was unclear what they were from their point of view, but smoke was clearly rising from them. They also seemed to be connected to something, since large, metallic pipes rose from the object, connecting to the wall of the room.

With speed and agility, Naruto hopped over the guardrails, falling almost one hundred feet to the ground floor of the room. The Shinigami Naruto continued to smile knowingly, appearing to realize some kind of advantage that he had found, but his posture would betray that as he impatiently ran over to the small staircase to the side. Why didn't he think of this before? He's been around this place for a while, but he supposed the thought had just slipped his mind.

At a closer glance, Naruto could tell that they were... furnaces?

Indeed they were furnaces, clunky kettle-black furnaces that were all alight with flame. And there weren't just orange flames. There were all sorts of colors. Red, yellow, blue, light blue, even black was intertwined in the mix. Naruto stood in a rare, curious awe as he watched the smoke from the flames rise up into the pipes. The strangest part about the spectacle was the varying intensities of the flames. Some flames burned with a size and heat unparalleled, while others were just a small wisp that was barely providing smoke. Naruto's eyes were drawn to two furnaces adjacent to each other. These two were the only one that were completely put out.

Naruto was transfixed at the sight of those two furnaces. They seemed very familiar, almost like they were a missing piece of himself. What this meant he didn't know. How could he feel some sort of connection to an inanimate object?

"What is this place?" asked Naruto in wonder. He didn't expect to get an answer.

"This room is the source of all your emotions," came the Shinigami Naruto's voice on the staircase. Naruto turned around to look at him, for once his feelings of mystique outweighing his hostility for his other self.

"Emotions?" asked Naruto.

The other Naruto paused on the staircase, a faraway look coming into his misty eyes.

"Yes, emotions. Every one of those furnace's is the fuel for your emotions. The size of the fire represents the prevalence of a certain emotion, and the smoke that comes through the other pipes allows you to feel that emotion."

He mirrored Naruto by staring at the two unlit furnaces. Compared to the others, they seemed pretty pathetic without a roaring fire.

"And those two pitiful furnaces over there represent your capacity to feel the emotions of love and compassion. The fact that they are unlit shows just how depraved you've become."

"If anything that's an improvement," whispered Naruto under his breath. The other Naruto caught the words, and frowned.

"No, not really. And that's why I'm going to ask you one last time. Won't you reconsider my offer? If you do I won't have to take control of your body."

Naruto squinted his eyes suddenly, shakes racking his body as he clenched his fists. He didn't like being given conditions.

"Love. Compassion. I don't understand what those emotions are supposed to be. Those emotions lead to nothing but trust, which eventually will always lead to betrayal. Am I supposed to be so intoxicated by those emotions that I'll always be able to follow those I love blindly even though I will likely be betrayed by them someday. No! It's better to just reside in hatred and psychopathy than to have those emotions in my core being."

Naruto was simply supposed to be monologueing to himself, but somehow that blasphemous comment managed to enrage the Shinigami Naruto.

The other Naruto rushed at him, grabbing the larger Hollow's shoulders and shaking. The Hollow Naruto stared blankly and dispassionately at the irate Shinigami.

"Ero-sennin would be ashamed if he saw you right now. Wasn't the entire goal of your life to get _rid_ of the cycle of hatred! Now here you are reveling it! Why are you being so weak! Just because you're a Hollow doesn't mean you have to be like this!"

Naruto's eyes widened with fury. "Fuck you. I am _NOT _weak. Ero-sennin was an idiot and a failure who liked to talk big. He'd never be able to stop the cycle of hatred, because there _is_ no way to stop it. It's not some random piece of equipment that you can just repair." The Shinigami continued to shake him violently.

"Then _prove _you're not weak. You're just whining like a baby simply because you don't want to feel betrayal or something! You're making no sense!" shouted the other Naruto, as he violently shook the Hollow Naruto's shoulders again.

"Shut up," said Naruto acidly in a cold fury. There was no smile on his face.

In response to Naruto's verbal thrashing, Naruto reared back his front right paw, bringing it forward to slash the other Naruto in the mid-section. The other Naruto's face contorted in shock as his intangibility became useless and pain erupted from his right shoulder to his left hip.

The other Naruto jumped back from the nasty wound inflicted to his torso. "How?" he asked.

Naruto usually would've grinned at this point, but in this particular instance he did not.

"You gave yourself away when you said your mental strength was greater than mine. You also said that the one in control of the mind would be able to influence this place, and proved it when you lit up this room to find me."

"So what?" heaved the other Naruto, putting distance between himself and Naruto.

"I've figured it out now. When two entities are fighting for control of the same mind and body, the one with the better resolve will always win. At this time, your resolve was greater than mine because of your intense desire to return me to your side. Whereas I simply wanted to get on with my life."

The other Naruto stared at the ceiling absentmindedly.

"But now..." A slight pause. He slowly twisted his head around, looking at the wounded Shinigami with a fierce amount of determination.

"I'm going to strengthen my resolve on killing you. That will show you I'm not weak. I will show you... that lack of love and compassion does not make you weak. On the contrary, it only increases your combat abilities."

The Shinigami Naruto's eyes widened as Naruto thrust into action, his speed and force increasing tenfold. He painfully lifted his Zanpakutou up, barely managing to stop the blow. Naruto's claws ground against his Zanpakutou as Naruto passed overhead.

Thinking it was safe, the other Naruto didn't notice his counterpart slam his single tail against his back until it was too late. The faux Shinigami flopped clumsily, crashing into one of the empty furnaces. He was being beaten at his own game.

He noticed Naruto rushing at him with a determination unparalleled by anything he had ever seen before.

"_This is insane. A normal opponent would at least give me time to recover!"_

Time seemed to freeze for a while, as even though Naruto's claws went into his abdomen; his mind was completely numb to the pain.

Naruto felt a sense of triumph as he lodged his claws into a fatal spot just as the Shinigami was standing up. He roughly pulled the claws from his victim, sparing him no pain or mercy. He wanted to relish in this... sense of accomplishment from killing the last remaining remnant of his human side. He watched as the Shinigami stumbled around, finally leaning on one of the empty furnaces.

Naruto narrowed his eyes suddenly as the other Shinigami sent a hushed laugh his way.

"What are you-" he started, as the Shinigami reached his hand up to the furnace.

"You should never lower your resolve until the very end," lectured the other Naruto in a whisper. After he said those words, he began chanting quietly. Naruto was unable to pick up on anything that he was saying. He also began to fumble around in his pockets, almost as if he were looking for something.

The other Naruto was willing the last of his mental strength. A slight pinkish flame was lighting at the end of his finger, a tiny pinprick of pink flame in a sea of color, and when the Shinigami placed it in the furnace...

FWOOSH!

The furnace flared up in a pinkish flame. so quickly that it almost took off the Shinigami's hand. Naruto could just stare at the lit furnace, it's flame almost the size of the black one across the room, which Naruto assumed to be hatred.

Naruto could just stare in shock and awe as the Shinigami moved on to the next furnace, despite his crippling injuries. Again, the Shinigami repeated his action on the previous furnace, getting the same result as he did on the previous one. Only this time, the fire was of a cool, cobalt blue instead of a soft pink.

"What did you-" Naruto began, before memories flooded his system. All the memories of his killing; his torment; his actions were all rushing back into his brain. And it... hurt. He clutched his head, screaming in agony at the overwhelming torrent of guilt hit his system. He buckled over, falling to his knees while still keeping the threshold on his head.

He finally collapsed on the ground at the same time the Shinigami did, both panting wildly from mental and physical pain respectively. Naruto was still roaring, while the other Naruto was panting with a satisfied, rhythmic breath.

He forcibly turned his head to look at his Hollow counterpart.

"I... u-used... the last... of... my," the other Naruto stopped to cough up blood. "m-mental... strength... to light your furnaces... of love... and compassion. You will now be able to... feel those. . . . . emotions... once more." He smiled smugly.

"And with it... comes... the feelings of guilt and remorse."

Naruto roared angrily. "How dare you! How dare you do this to me. Take it away right now, asshole!" he demanded.

The other Naruto smiled wider. "See... you are weak. Getting so... worked up... over these wonderful emotions,... you don't even... realize... that I did... you a favor."

"Did me a favor?" yelled back Naruto. "You call this a favor? I was better the way before. You took away my joy! You took away my fun! How fucking dare you do this to me!" Naruto rambled on.

"Pretty soon... you'll be back... to your old... self. Your caring... compassionate... self." said the other Naruto joyfully as his body started to spasm.

"Have a... wonderful... life... N-Naruto," said the other Naruto somberly, using the last of his strength to close his eyes. He drew his final breath... and never opened his eyes again.

And he was smiling. A look a pure, peaceful serenity was marred upon his face, an unsurpassed artistry among life, before he dissolved into wisps of pure, white reiatsu that beautifully dispersed throughout the entire room. It looked almost... angelic. He truly was too good for this world.

That infuriated Naruto beyond belief.

"Back to my old self, huh? You wish, asshole," he said as another spasm of guilt racked his body. They were not lessening in any intensity, and Naruto was left wondering when he'd be able to get over this.

"But, my dear Shinigami, you don't realize that you've just achieved the opposite of what you're hoping for."

* * *

"**Well, look who's back. Have an _interesting _encounter with your other self, now did you?**" asked the Kyuubi mockingly as Naruto entered his chamber once again. Naruto's mood had taken a turn for the worse, and Kyuubi just loved riling him up.

"Yeah, I killed him," said Naruto flatly, as another painful spasm shook his body. "Who was that and how was he here, anyway?"

The Kyuubi's grin widened further. "**Ah, now that is a _very_... interesting tale."**

The Kyuubi sensed Naruto's silence so he continued. "**You see, the human mind doesn't usually manifest itself to the body like the way it does to you. Usually, it will remain hidden in the sidelines, simply carrying out all it's duties in private. But _you_... and the other Jinchuuriki are a very special case. The mind has to make itself visible so we can interact with each other**."

Naruto nodded. "What does that have to do with why he was there?"

"**I'm getting there**!" the Kyuubi roared, annoyed at Naruto. "**Anyway, what you just saw was the essence of the Plus side of your soul," **the Kyuubi said, ignoring Naruto's shocked visage. "**Every Plus has a sort of "Inner World". It's where the Shinigami's powers and Zanpakutou spirit reside and are awakened. When a Plus transforms into a Hollow, the Inner World collapses and any chance of Shinigami powers are destroyed. What is mostly unknown is that when a Plus is transforming into a Hollow, the essence of that Plus will usually attempt to take refuge in the "Inner World". However, since the Inner World collapses, the essence and energy of the Plus is destroyed as well. However, in your case, my chamber and your manifested mind was _connected _to the Inner World. Your Plus essence was able to escape to your mind and avoid termination by the collapse of the Inner World. He was also able to interact with your now destroyed Shinigami powers**," the Kyuubi finished.

"**And I know all about the little incident in the room of emotions. It seems that your Plus essence activated your love and compassion furnaces. How pathetic**," the Kyuubi roared with laughter at the unfortunate Hollow.

Naruto, who was mulling over the complications of his Plus essence, now scowled coldly at the Kyuubi.

"I've been thinking about that little complication. You're right; it was pathetic that I allowed this kind of sacrilegious thing to happen to me. And as much as I hate to admit; the other side of me was right. I was being weak," Naruto explained.

The Kyuubi was surprisingly silent during Naruto's monologue. No insults, no banter, and no sarcastic responses. It warmed Naruto's "heart" slightly.

Naruto placed his hand over his non-existent heart.

"I was immersing myself in hatred because I was afraid of loving. Fear... is what made me weak. "No more", I decided. I'm going to do these things because _I _feel like it. I won't conform to these standard definitions of Shinigami, human, and Hollow. I will now consider loving to be an annoyance, rather than something to fear."

Naruto was silent for a moment. "And I _hate_ him. I hate him! I hate everything about that guy. How dare he do something like that to me?"

Kyuubi looked thoughtful for a second.

"My chest... my heart? Love. Compassion. This is what I'm feeling. Feeling these emotions after being without them for so long?"

"WHAT IS THIS?" he shrieked, going through another spasm.

"**That being gave you back your sanity."**

Naruto froze, staring at the water on the ground, his eyes wide open in a murderous rage.

"Sanity? Now I understand. The ability to love is the definition of sanity. I'm sane... Despite all my issues, I'M SANE! This feeling of love... this feeling of compassion. These annoying feelings will keep me from acting on my dreams. It will keep my volatile behavior and confusing mannerisms in line. It will keep me... sane?"

Naruto whipped his head up to stare at Kyuubi with confused, wide eyes.

"Then I'll become insane! Anything that will keep my ambition from withering away. If it means being insane I'll do it! I'll immerse myself in such vile, heinous acts of destruction and cruelty towards the human and Shinigami species that I'll numb myself to the pain. Those lit furnaces in the emotion room will go back to the way they should be! I WILL KILL MY HEART!" he finished poetically.

He was panting when he finished, rage and hate not even close to subsiding.

"**What about your friend, Fuermos? How will he fit into your whole new view of life?**"

Kyuubi's words once again caught Naruto off-guard. Fuermos? What would he do with him? He didn't love Fuermos, of course, but that didn't stop him from caring about what happened to him. Would he hold the insect in the same disregard he held Shinigami and humans?

"Uh, even before this I still held no hostile feelings towards other Hollows. I don't think that's going to change," he said uncertainly.

The Kyuubi grinned nastily. He had caught Naruto in a mistake.

Naruto hastily changed the subject.

"But, this is enough about my emotions problem. I still need to kill you and take your power. We are not going to talk anymore and you will not mock me with your comments anymore."

Without even bothering to listen to Kyuubi's reply, Naruto rushed right up to the Kyuubi's cage and tore the seal clean off. The flimsy piece of paper came off as easily as it should have.

For a moment, everything was quiet. Naruto didn't talk; Kyuubi didn't talk, and only the sound of dripping water from the moldy ceiling outside filled their ears.

After about a minute, a strange ball appeared where the now unlocked cage was. It expanded rapidly, fanning out in all directions, and both Naruto and Kyuubi were engulfed in a huge burst of yellow light.

* * *

In three years time, Konoha had gotten completely back on its feet, and secured itself as the continuing strongest nation in the ninja world. The Konoha 10 had surely risen throughout, every single one of them becoming at least a high-level Jounin. Their efficiency and success of their high-level missions brought in much income for the Hi no Kuni, and Konoha was able to rebuild itself in record time.

Nineteen-year Jounin Haruno Sakura was never more proud of her village as she walked through the new main street of Konoha. During the three years that had passed, Sakura had improved dramatically in her skills, rapidly closing the gap between herself and Tsunade. With both medical skills and inhuman strength. She had become one of the most respected Jounin of Konohagakure, especially since the loss of her teacher, Kakashi.

Children walked along her path, playing the classic "Ninja" game. Delicious smells and wonderful sounds assaulted her nose and ears, and it would seem like Pain's invasion had never happened at all. Everyone was just so happy... despite all the changes.

For example, Danzou's rule. The man had established himself as... not a bad leader. He actually had a secret admiration for the Sandaime, and despite his political disagreements with the man, loved Konoha very dearly.

His attitude towards the other nations... wasn't so peachy though. His dogmatic and militaristic stance got on other country's nerves at time, so much that Suna had broken their alliance with them. He was just too obsessed with Konoha's social, political, and military superiority.

The young woman looked around. There were posters everywhere. On buildings, on fences, on benches. Everywhere. And they all contained the same thing. Propaganda. Posters spouting one-sided information about their enemies, while glorifying Konoha. The "Will of Fire" was often used as a propaganda slogan. This was one of the main downsides of Danzou's rule.

Sakura herself had changed much over three years, after realizing that she was a late bloomer. She had gotten a bit taller, now clocking in at 5'6". She grew her hair out again, not as long as when she was twelve, but long enough to reach her upper back. Her breasts had gotten much bigger, and although they weren't on par with Tsunade or Hinata, they were still rather large.

Her clothing had gotten much more... liberal. She still wore a similar red top to what she wore three years ago, but this one was much more form-fitting and low-cut, exposing much of her sizable cleavage. She also took a page out of Ino's book by cutting off her shirt about halfway, showing off a gratuitous view of her bare belly. Naturally, she attracted much of the male attention due to this and her admittedly beautiful face as she matured into a woman. But, that didn't matter. Despite all the attention she got from men, it never mattered. Because both of her boys were dead.

Her anger at Naruto's death had subsided shortly after, because nothing but grief and denial remained when she realized how much she actually missed the blonde. And to make things worse, Kakashi had also been reported killed in the struggle. Then about a month or two later, Sasuke's death was reported. He was torn to shreds by some foreign shinobi force, Danzou had publicly announced. The absolute brutality of the killing was horrific to even listen to.

The two successive deaths of her teammates hit the poor girl hard. Naruto's death alone had been enough; he wasn't even given a funeral where she could grieve. Then, the boy who she twistedly but truthfully loved came home brutally eviscerated, and it was too much. Sakura was promptly torn to pieces.

She spent almost three months wallowing in depression, rarely leaving her room and crying herself to sleep over her lost loved ones. Then, at the end of the third month, after her parent's desperate attempts to console her, the rest of the Konoha 10 extended the hand of comfort to her. They would spend a month attempting to reach her, then another five to return her to old self. And even then, she just wasn't the same. She never carried that sense of hot-blooded spirit she had when she was younger. There was always a sort of brokenness in her eyes every time they looked at her. She had also gotten crueler on her missions, and she honestly picked up some of Danzou's dogmatic attitude when she heard a _foreign _force killed Sasuke.

She stared up at the Hokage monument; Danzou's face had been added to the only remaining space on the mountain. She was wondering if that was symbolic of him being the last Hokage when a perky, feminine voice called out to her.

"Sakura! Hey, Sakura!" The pink-haired woman recognized that voice anywhere. Ino was the one who had gotten closest to Sakura after the death of her two teammates. They once again shared a sort of friendship they had during the academy, without all the drama and rivalry messing up their relationship.

"Hello, Ino-pig," she said quietly. That old nickname never wore off. She viewed the changes Ino had undergone, and those were very few. Besides the older look to her, there was little change that occurred in Ino over the years. She was still the same height, had the same hair, and wore the same clothes.

The blonde girl was running over to her, panting wildly. There was a panic stricken look on her face, almost like she had seen a ghost.

"Ino?" asked Sakura, confused at the sudden behavior. One of Ino's more interesting talents, was her ability to get information before anyone else did. At the age of seventeen, Ino was drafted into the ANBU, rising rapidly through the ranks of the Torture and Interrogation Force, before becoming right hand to Ibiki himself.

Sakura placed her hands on Ino's shoulders worriedly, trying to calm her friend.

"Ino, what's wrong? Calm down and speak to me calmly," Sakura demanded of her friend.

Ino slowed her breathing at once, acutely aware of the information she needed to get out quickly.

"Rokudaime-same has called for all of the high-ranking Jounin in his office. This is urgent news! Everything will be explained there!"

* * *

Sakura blinked at her position in the middle of the line of Jounin, solid indifference to the situation her reaction. Honestly, she had seen it coming for quite some time now. Danzou had been looking for an excuse for close to a year now.

It all started when Danzou's experiments with Kyuubi's chakra were brought to a close. Despite her anger and protests, Danzou had taken Naruto's corpse after his death, and blatantly defiled it by searching for residual amounts of Kyuubi's chakra. Much to her shame, she and the rest of the medical and sealing specialists had been assigned the duty of replicating the use of the fox's cloak in everyday ninja.

And... they succeeded. Using captured nin from the destroyed Otogakure as guinea pigs, they successfully received a one-tailed Kyuubi cloak in the ninja. It took them almost two years of constant, heart-breaking (for her) work, but they finally succeeded in receiving a one-tailed cloak in the ninja. It wasn't as much as Danzou would've like, but nonetheless he was proud. The medical and sealing knowledge of Konoha was superb, and they had achieved what ninja villages could only dream of in two years flat. This would surely lead Konoha into a golden age of prosperity.

At least, that was what Sakura told herself as she worked on a blatant insult to Naruto's memories. That is what Naruto would've liked, right? For the village to prosper?

Forty-eight out of fifty Konoha shinobi had successfully undergone the long procedure of getting the Kyuubi's chakra implanted into their chakra coils. Pretty soon, she too and the rest of the Konoha 10 would go through theirs as well.

But, therein lies the problems. Spies from the despicable Iwagakure no Sato had infiltrated the village as Leaf shinobi. They personally viewed the inner workings of the procedure. Fortunately, one spy had been captured and turned over to Ibiki. Otherwise, they would've never gotten the information they needed.

And five days ago, there had been a little skirmish near the Hi no Kuni's border between a squad of Konoha nin and a squad of Iwa nin. The incident ended badly for the Leaf Shinobi, all three Genin and one Jounin dead at the hands of the Iwa nin. But, the whole fight was just two squads of ninja there at the wrong place at the wrong time. But Danzou had turned it into a propaganda campaign. He staunchly proclaimed it was nothing more than cold-blooded murder by the barbarians of Iwagakure no Sato, and the villagers believed him. Soon, the whole village was chanting for blood of Iwagakure, and war seemed inevitable.

And there it was. A declaration of war against Iwagakure no Sato. That was the reason for the meeting.

Sakura vacated the building once the meeting was over, feeling slightly more smug satisfaction that she thought she should. She didn't care about Iwa, but she was more than a little concerned about how her loved ones would fare in this war. This was no doubt in her mind that Konoha would sweep Iwa in the upcoming war, especially with their new weapon. But still, she couldn't help but feel a little worried about this. The whole village was beginning to prepare for war. There was rationing of food and more and more ninja were set for implantation of Kyuubi chakra, including herself. She pushed those thoughts from her head as she walked away from the building, thinking about the true reason for the war.

Hi no Kuni would probably somehow annex Tsuchi no Kuni after all this was done. That was Danzou's goal. To exert his superiority after gaining so much awesome power. The first stage to building the Konohan Empire.

* * *

Oh, silly me. I was supposed to give you some awesome fight between Naruto and Kyuubi this chapter, but apparently I gave you some boring fight with a half-assed Yami Naruto ripoff instead. Oops.

And all this shit that happened in his mind makes me wonder if I came up with this scene while I was high. I mean, the whole thing may seem a little trippy, to be honest.

But yeah, in all seriousness, I found that little incident to be necessary to deepen Naruto's character further. Naruto vs Kyuubi will come next chapter, I promise.

Konoha and Iwa are going to war again! Oh noes! And this time there are more ulterior motives behind the war,

So yeah, tell me what you think of this chapter in your reviews. I'd love to hear them.

Happy Trails!

_**Alban55**_


	8. El Precio de Libertad

Howdy, all my readers. This is your favorite Mexican archaeological site here with the next chapter of Amenaza! Naruto and Kyuubi begin battling so chaos is sure to ensue. So look forward to it!

Also, I've decided to use the beginning of each chapter to answer some questions sent by reviewers. Note that the first time I will be answering all questions left by reviewers from Chapters 1-7 that the story hasn't answered on it's own. After this, it will simply be for the chapter before it.

**raw666**: He didn't let them live. He lost that fight and was forced to retreat. As for an army, you'll just have to wait and see.

**MonCappy**: As you said, Naruto is the protagonist, yet is also the villain. And Naruto will return to his old world to finish business, but the vast majority of the plot will take place in the Bleach universe.

**Lykaos**: There will not be pairings.

**Morcalivan7: **Naruto will get many more powers as the story goes on, so empowering rage will not be the only one. For the tails, Naruto only has one. He doesn't have a Spanish name and will not get a Spanish name. Spanish is only used for Hollow techniques and Arrancar Zanpakutous. Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez and Nnoitra Gilga aren't Spanish names either, are they?

**Joe**: Sadly, he won't be returning to Konoha for quite some time. But, I do have something great planned when he does. And no, he will not be returning during the war.

**Fan of Fanfics21**: Well, I guess he would do that if he were to destroy Konoha. But, I doubt he would go out of his way to that for that reason. After all, he doesn't know that Konoha has achieved that capability, not to mention their cloaks are nowhere near as strong as Naruto's was.

Oh, and in case any of you were wondering, the title, "Amenaza", is Spanish for "threat" or "menace".

**Disclaimer: **I don't listen to my conscience, but it's telling me that I don't own Naruto or Bleach.

* * *

Chapter 8: El Precio de Libertad

The burst of light lasted for approximately five seconds, and for it; neither one of the two foxes could see anything else. Just a blinding, all encompassing flash of bright yellow that hindered the visibility for anyone in the vicinity.

A deafening creak filled the room, an ominous noise that promoted anxiety for Naruto and excitement for the former prisoner behind the bars. Kyuubi was finally being set free. This would be a defining moment for both of them. Whoever won... would fulfill something great. Whoever lost, well...

The light subsided after what seemed like an eternity, and the doors to Kyuubi's cage were wide open, the provocative barrier that always kept Naruto from being attacked by the being behind the bars. How ironic that he would be the one to remove it. Whatever the emotion felt, it was a tense atmosphere, one that reeked solely of barely restrained conflict between the two enemies.

Ironically, nothing happened. The Kyuubi just stood there stoically, an intense look of glee painted on its face, and in no way poised to attack its long-hated container, as Naruto was oh so led to believe.

This behavior stunned him, and Naruto was immediately on guard due to the Kyuubi's bizarre behavior. Why wasn't it attacking him? Was it waiting for the perfect time? Or was there some sort of ulterior motive? The Hollow edged closer to the behemoth fox, biting his lip as he approached.

The Kyuubi moved its giant muzzle, causing Naruto move back skittishly as the Kyuubi reared back its head and laughed harder than Naruto had ever heard it laugh before. As the Kyuubi put its down its giant head, the eerie laugh immediately mutated into a hostile roar.

The room shook violently, though Naruto in the middle was completely unaffected. That is, until the Kyuubi raised its huge paw and smacked Naruto with it like he was just a bug. The Hollow was sent flying across the area, smashing headfirst into a wall on the bottom left side.

Naruto left a slight imprint on the stone wall, and as he slumped to the ground he felt the Kyuubi's rank, red energy assault his nostrils. Truly a being of absolute hatred and malice, fed by countless atrocities. It was truly captivating, despite Naruto's dislike for the fox.

The Kyuubi sneered.

"**You are truly suicidal**."

Naruto altered his position so he was laying against the wall to face the Kyuubi. A loopy grin molted onto his face, and he let out a vulgar, high-pitched laugh at his current situation. He collapsed to the ground in his laughter, banging his paws against the ground, as if it were the most comedic thing in the world.

This did nothing more than infuriate the Kyuubi.

"**How can you be laughing in a situation like this? You're dead! You sealed your fate the minute you opened that cage. And now you're laughing at this like none of it ever happened!"**

"No, it's not insane enough," Naruto muttered to himself; the Hollow's face taking on a stoic expression.

The Kyuubi picked up on that.

"**Insane? I'd say you're plenty insane as it is, brat. Laughing at your own misfortune, wanting to cement your own demise. If that's not insanity, then what is?"**

Naruto grinned up at the Kyuubi.

"It's not insanity. I'm forcing myself to behave like this. It goes against every natural reaction that I have, yet I will continue to do this. Why? Because the more I do this, the more natural this reaction will come to me. Right now I'm making a mental checklist to do things that will suppress the feelings of love and compassion that the Shinigami me forced onto me. When this reaction finally becomes natural to me, those feelings will immediately cease."

Naruto got to his feet, only slightly damaged despite being thrown into a wall. His thick skin was truly remarkable. He looked at the Kyuubi intensely, with a different posture and feel than the usual emotional Hollow.

"You know, you are the perfect opponent for me to fight after being violated by my Shinigami self. Let's face it, Kyuubi. I hate you, and you hate me. I would feel no guilt over your passing, anyway, which means I won't be hindered by those emotions this time. Expect me to be fully serious this time. I have no time to play around."

Kyuubi was silent, wondering how this little Hollow could be so bipolar. Going from goofy to painstakingly serious in a split second? Judging from his previous actions, he probably wouldn't take this seriously anyway. He would likely contradict himself in the fight and start acting goofy again.

"_**Probably just another defense mechanism against love and compassion. That's likely how he would do it. Another thing to add to his mental "checklist" to help him become insane.**_"

A large scale rumbling cut off the thoughts of both Naruto and Kyuubi. It came from all directions, and it seriously bothered Naruto there for a minute.

Little pieces of stone crumbled and fell off of the wall. A strange, red mist hovered in the air throughout the entire chamber. As it touched the walls, parts of it solidified to become a thick red ooze that ran down the walls at an impossible slowness. As the substance oozed down, it incinerated the wall, causing wisps of burnt stone to rise into the air and become one with the gaseous red substance. Naruto actually began to feel a little bit dizzy.

"What's happening?" asked Naruto, swiveling his head back and forth much like a confused child. The Kyuubi laughed raucously out of nowhere, apparently even happier at this new revelation.

Naruto noticed an extra kind of giddiness to the fox's laughter, and despite his better judgement, become curious to what the fox was so happy about.

He opened his mouth to speak, before he turned away from the Kyuubi to face the degrading wall.

"No! I don't wanna know!" he said illogically, contradicting his previous statements. Kyuubi stopped laughing at that; Naruto was getting annoying. Oh, how his new behavior infuriated the Kyuubi.

"**You insignificant insect!" **the Kyuubi roared, his haunches rising.

"**Your mind is deteriorating right before your very eyes. When you took off the seal, the support keeping me in your body mostly vanished. My power will literally eat your body away from the inside until your body, mind, and soul is completely absorbed! All within the next ten minutes! Tell me that doesn't frighten you!**" the Kyuubi roared, hoping to get some kind of negative reaction from him.

Naruto said nothing.

"**Don't you get it; you're doomed. You can't hope to beat me, let alone within the next ten minutes! Your absolute disregard for your own demise disgusts me! Run around frantically! Scream in agony! Don't just sit there like a fool with your back turned on this situation!**" the Kyuubi ranted, as it charged up its giant "chakra" ball, though it was considerably weaker than its normal one.

It released the ball, and a blinding flash erupted on the scene, as the giant ball of destruction rushed at high speeds directly towards where Naruto was sitting with his back turned. He didn't flinch when it came his way.

The energy tore right through the wall like it was paper, presumably obliterating Naruto right along with it. The beam of energy held fast, before it dissipated after around five seconds, leaving a charred depression of wall where it had impacted.

Kyuubi stared at the destroyed wall for a few seconds, before he heard an inane, high-pitched laughter come from inside the stone, just from behind where Naruto was sitting before.

"It looks like I'm getting into some exceptionally good fights today. I'm gettin' all jittery just thinking about it! I'll have to tell Fuermos about you once you're dead."

A barely singed Naruto was crawling out of the wall, doing many flamboyant and unnecessary movements as he came out. From the way the top of his head was burned, it was apparent that he had avoided the blast by barely dodging beneath it and crouching against the wall.

If it were any other opponent, the Kyuubi would've laughed sinisterly at his opponent's plight. But, this... brat, this Hollow's behavior was so infuriating to him that he only performed a menacing growl.

He could sense the sane mind underneath all the perplexing mannerisms. This Hollow fully had the capability to act sane. To act serious. And yet, he wasn't. He was treating this whole fight as a joke. As if the fox wasn't worth his time. He was dead on in thinking that the Hollow would contradict himself with what he said earlier.

The Hollow was running at him now, his movements loopy, yet at the same time... effective. The Kyuubi raised his claw high into the air, red energy wisping around the limb like a phantom arm. He locked on to the fox Hollow, before slamming down the appendage on the smaller fox.

The attack missed its target, but the destruction it caused in its wake more than made up for this. An absurdly powerful shockwave was unleashed from the point of impact. The walls and floors split into numerous pieces, and the disturbing paintings of Naruto fell off of the wall.

Naruto laughed, using his superior agility to hop onto a piece of debris falling from the ceiling. He performed unorthodox flips to bound from one rock to the next. Using his current one as a platform, he sank his claws into the firm rock, before using it to propel himself the rest of the way, attempting to reach the top of Kyuubi's head.

"**You-**" began the Kyuubi as he readied his energy laced claws once again, prepared to strike the airbound Hollow.

"**Damn you!"**

He thrust his claws forward, but Naruto barely avoided the attack by contorting his body in mid-air. Yet, the gust of wind and shockwave created from the attack was nearly enough to send Naruto flying.

Naruto and Kyuubi traded blows in mid-air, Naruto's large tails being able to block one of Kyuubi's claws. As he fell slightly, the claws chased after him, nearly getting through his defenses. He used all of his strengths to blocks all four claws with his own and his tail. He dodged to the side, breaking one of the Kyuubi's claws as they passed by his right hip. The nail of the claw were flying, and Naruto slashed the skin of the Kyuubi's paw with both of his claws.

His deed done, Naruto shot out his tail and grappled it around the end of one of Kyuubi's claws. The fox Hollow pushed himself onto the main part of Kyuubi's paw, just as the beast in question used his other paw to attack the hanging Hollow. He lifted his head and neck to avoid a deadly strike that would've taken off his head, thick skin or no.

Kyuubi, now annoyed by Naruto's speed and agility, raised his paw to his face, wanting to attack Naruto from that angle. Naruto, sensing the opportunity, leaped off of Kyuubi's paw.

"You left an opening!" Naruto yelled, as he came down on the Kyuubi's face. He didn't hesitate. Absolutely no hesitation at all. In a fight with a great being like the Kyuubi, any waiting would invite instant death.

The smaller fox timed his leap so he would land near Kyuubi's eyes, to which he then slashed out at the red iris with both claws. He felt his claws penetrate the soft substance, and the Hollow dragged his natural weapons down, creating a worse and even more painful injury for the Kyuubi.

The Kyuubi roared in pain, emitting his signature shockwave as he did. The Bijuu bucked Naruto off his his head, sending Naruto flying about fifty feet in the air. The beast charged up his energy ball again, making it slightly bigger and more powerful. This one would surely destroy Naruto.

But, Naruto was angled to the right, and easily missed the fired beam of light, which Kyuubi fired too late. Not to mention, as his current rate, the Hollow would land directly on the back of the Kyuubi. The Kyuubi watched as Naruto effortlessly fell onto his slanted down back, and hissed as Naruto sank his sharp claws into his backside.

Without even giving the enormous fox time to respond, Naruto used both of his front paws to grasp a handful of the Kyuubi's fur. With this all said and done, he sank his razor sharp teeth into the fox's flesh.

The Kyuubi and Naruto roared at the same time, as Kyuubi had his flesh bitten off and Naruto began chewing said flesh. A nasty hissing noise came from out of Naruto's mouth; the acidic flesh of Kyuubi seared the insides. Cankerous sores sprung up along his gums, and the Hollow spit out the poisonous flesh as fast as he could.

Naruto could've kicked himself for his move. He had forgotten that the fox was basically made up of highly corrosive energy. If that was the case, then eating him would definitely be out of the question.

"_Maybe I underestimated him a little. His speed and defense may be lacking compared to mine, but his raw power far outclasses my own, and then there is the matter of his poisonous flesh which I cannot eat._"

The cogs rotated around in Naruto's mind, trying to come up with a solution.

"_This is my mind, isn't it? I should have the advantage. The released seal is deteriorating my body and mind, but that shouldn't matter as long as they both are slightly intact. From the looks of things, the energy has corroded about one eighth of my mind right now. Once my mind is destroyed, I will die and the Kyuubi will be released. The energy will eat away at my corpse too. The Shinigami..."_

Naruto paused, snapped his eyes open and staring straight ahead. He didn't notice the long, red tail slither up from beneath him like a slimy serpent.

"_That's it!_"

As he finished his thoughts, he felt a sharp jolt of pain enter his mind, and a sort of profound dizziness struck him. The reiryoku eating away at his mind must have been getting to him. And, from the way his feet scalded, he would be injured simply by standing on the Kyuubi for an extending period of time.

The small Hollow's luck become even worse as he felt something big and hairy wrap itself around his midsection. As he realized it was one of his opponent's tails, the hairy thing lurched forward, taking a grunting Naruto with it.

The tail's owner forcefully pulled Naruto up to his face, staring at him with hate-filled red eyes.

Naruto grinned, releasing a puff of steam from his injured mouth that had apparently not been released. The two super-beings stared each other down for a good fifteen seconds, one with a look of unrestrained hatred and the other with a look of poisonous amusement.

"**Seven minutes left.**" the Kyuubi boomed simply. Naruto's grin widened.

"**Seven minutes until you perish, and I'm free to go forth with my path of destruction!**"

"Again with the killing and the destruction and the pain. You really have a problem, you know that? Always being so selfish and cruel. Have some regard for other peoples lives and feelings, why don't you?"

The Kyuubi laughed.

"**Says the ones who wants to destroy your former village AND all of Soul Society. You're nothing but a hypocrite." **the Kyuubi spat out the words like it were tightened his tail's grip on Naruto.

Naruto whistled happily, thoroughly unconcerned with his current plight.

"True, true. My path of destruction is just as bad as yours, if not worse. But, at least I have a goal. Something to strive for. You just destroy things at random, while wandering through the world with nothing else to do or think about. A pathetic existence such as yours I have never seen before. How do you even stand it?" Naruto stopped speaking, and lowered his voice to a whisper.

"But... your pathetic life is going to be over, soon."

"**HA! And such a blatant lie that is! You are beaten, out of time, and have never had the advantage during our entire fight. And yet you continue to arrogantly believe in all your bullshit. You call _MY_ existence pathetic? Just look at yourself and you shall see the true image of a pitiful being!"**

"Pitiful? Me? Not really. You could at least call it dedicated. We are both greatly emotional beings, but the difference between you and me is that once I find a goal, I never waver from its course."

Naruto stopped talking for a minute to adopt a mocking and fake face of pleading.

"P-please K-Kyuubi, I don't w-want you to d-die,"

"Just kidding, I do want you to die. Your existence is so pathetic that you must die!" he laughed heartily at his illogical behavior.

"**How contradictory can you get?"** asked the larger fox angrily.

"More than that, you know," said Naruto. Ah, so it was another one of those stupid acts of his. That makes sense.

"You might be thinking right now, "Oh, he's just making a groundless statement about killing me", but I assure you that isn't the case. You see, I still have a sane, rational mind and I can very well use it to my advantage. I thought back to my Shinigami self a little while back, and it got me thinking about other things. I was enlightened to the fact that an individual's mindscape can be warped to a certain extent."

"**You wouldn't-"**the Kyuubi began.

A depraved grin.

"I regained control over my mind as he was dying. That means, since the seal has been released, you are in my territory now. And since you are not a part of me, you can't take control like the other Naruto did."

"**That's impossible! You can't will anything! That can't be done in a human's mind**!"

"Well, it's a good thing I'm not a human anymore then."

Kyuubi's eyes widened. Naruto was a _Hollow_, not a human. The same rules wouldn't apply to him.

"You were much safer in the seal, Kyuubi. Where _I _couldn't get to you," Naruto whispered as an afterthought.

He focused his mind on a particular object, attempting to will it to do whatever he wanted it to. He grinned as a slight explosion appeared in the wall to the right of the opened cage.

"It's a little difficult. Nothing what I wanted happened. Though I think I can make this work on my next try." Naruto mused.

"**Not that I'll let you do that! I kill you in one strike before you ever master that technique!" **roared Kyuubi, opening his gaping maw in order tear Naruto to shreds with his razor sharp teeth.

Naruto focused again before that could, and with a grunt pulled one of the cage's bars from its place. The bar hovered in the air for a second, before it was sharpened to a point. The Kyuubi's teeth were mere feet away from Naruto when the sharpened bar speared Kyuubi in one of the tails, before lodging into the adjacent wall. The Kyuubi roared as his head thrust to the side as a result of the knockback, and when his tail was impaled on the makeshift spear.

Naruto was sent flying from the Kyuubi's grip, laughing raucously all the while. He grunted as he fell in the water a good distance away, before shakily getting to his feet to wipe some blood from the corner of his mouth.

"Heh heh," he panted. "Looks like I can alter my mind in various ways. I wonder if I can alter the landscape?"

Before he follow through though, Kyuubi had already painfully yanked out the altered bar pinning him to the wall. The enraged fox halted, reared back, and sent it spiral ling at Naruto with one of his other tails.

"Whoa! Careful now! You don't want me getting hurt, do you?" asked Naruto as he hopped to the side to avoid the spear.

The Kyuubi looked at his wounded tail and then back at Naruto, a sneer forming on his visage.

"**Insolent brat... how dare you do such a thing to me. Damn you... damn you and your mental powers."**

"Oh... I'm hurt. I don't want to be damned! How could wish such a horrible thing on me?!" asked Naruto emotionally. His shrill voice reverberated throughout the entire chamber, and it really got on his nerves.

"**I've had enough of you and your bullshit! I'm going to end this now!"  
**

He shot towards Naruto suddenly, his claw extending in a horizontal strike. On the end of each of the claws, a deep red orb of light formed and was quickly increasing in size. They were each thoroughly reminiscent of a weaker form of the fox's strong ball.

"**This form of attack will easily render you dead! Say goodbye to your life, brat!"**

"_Maybe I can increase the power of my attacks as well. The possibilities are endless! Too bad I'll only be able to use this in my_ _mind_." Naruto was thinking, unconcerned with the charging Kyuubi.

Naruto met the fox halfway through his excursion, and use a powerful leap to push himself up to the center of the Kyuubi's paw. The orbs of energy were flanking him around all directions, but with their current course they would miss.

"**Why did he-**" the Kyuubi started as the smaller fox approached the pad of his giant paw. He was cut off suddenly when Naruto let loose a violent kick from his back paw. It impacted with the Kyuubi's own paw, and with a little willing to make it stronger, Naruto timed it so it reflexed inwards towards the Kyuubi's head.

"_**Shit, he timed it so it would**_-" the Kyuubi thought. The orbs on his claws were fully charged now, and he was just about to release when his paw turned unexpectedly towards his own body.

The attack discharged, sending out four beams of searing light, each a little bit larger than a Cero. The four attacks merged to form one giant beam, which engulfed the Kyuubi's head in a vicious yet mesmerizing display of light. The Kyuubi screamed in pain, yet it came out as more of a roar. Kyuubi was thrown back by the mere force of the attack, and he found himself thrown against another one of the bars.

The light dissipated, and Kyuubi's head and top part of his torso was heavily scorched black. It would seem like the fox's own power had an adverse effect on him. Naruto laughed at the fox's misfortune, his joy becoming insidious.

"And now to follow it up with some theatrics," announced Naruto madly, as he wrestled more bars from the cage to become sharp spears. While the Kyuubi was disoriented, the Hollow sent out all five spears to pin the fox to the wall by his legs and one of his tails.

The abused Kyuubi struggled to get free, but the bars of the cage were still slightly embued with sealing energy, so the Kyuubi was unable to escape, at least until all the energy drained out of the bars.

Kyuubi's ears pricked up as he heard rustling near his legs. There was Naruto, leaping his way up to the Kyuubi's face. A smug look of satisfaction was on his face, almost like he knew that he had won.

"I find this very fitting. It serves as the end of the nineteen year old conflict between you and me. I always felt like you were something to be feared, and for a while I genuinely did fear you. I used to think you were immortal. Invincible, if you will. But... not anymore. I'm done with fear, and you are done in general. And now... you will die here. Killed by your own cage." Naruto gave his speech as he ascended onto the Kyuubi's snout.

"Goodbye... Kyuubi. I... won't be sad to see you go." Naruto choked out. The sad tone was there, but it sounded so acted and contrived it might as well have been fake.

"**Wait! Don't you at least want to know the circumstances behind your death?" **the Kyuubi said randomly, as Naruto halted bringing out the last bar of the cage. He looked at the merciless fox suspiciously, seeming to want to know if this was a trick.

"What do you mean, the "circumstances behind my death". I thought I simply died of chakra overuse?" asked Naruto against his better judgement.

Kyuubi emitted a low chuckle from his throat, a vile laughter that set Naruto on edge.

"**Oh, please. Like you could ever die of that while I am sealed in you**."

Naruto stumbled over words trying to think of a response, but he couldn't make one. The fox could be lying, but why would he? And why would he die of chakra overuse, when he had a large supply of it thanks to the fox?

"Then-?"

The Kyuubi chuckled again.

"**Oh, it's very simple. You didn't die of chakra overuse... at least on your own you didn't. Your body and myself would alert you to this if you actually _were _dying from chakra overuse. Think of it like pain; it's a signal that alerts your brain of something wrong. You see, your father had a _very _pivotal role in all this."**

"My father?" Naruto question, worried about where this would go.

Kyuubi's eyes squinted.

"**Yes... your _father_**_," _Kyuubi hissed. "**That man's consciousness was set to appear in the seal should you activate eight tails, which you in fact did. He then would restore both the seal... and your chakra**," the Kyuubi said.

"But-"

"**Except he didn't restore your chakra. He only _believed _he was restoring your chakra. Artificially restoring chakra is impossible in itself. The only way to do it is to have it be restored naturally. The fool didn't know, and despite his petty beliefs, he attempted to restore your chakra. Yet, all he did was numb your ability to sense that your chakra was running out. Sort of like adding an adrenaline rush."**

**"You get it, now? You went back into battle believing you had chakra, as you couldn't feel any chakra fatigue. You kept on exerting and exerting and forcing the chakra to come. And then finally, it caught up with you. Your chakra coils were strained too much, and the worse case scenario happened. . . . . ."**

**". . . . . .****You died."**

A tense silence filled the room, as Kyuubi let a smile come onto his face. Naruto was shaking in _absolute _rage. How dare... how dare his father do something like that do him. How many mistakes would the man make when it came to him? It seemed like all his father did was make things bad for him.

First, he seals this asshole into him, with the mindset that he would use the power to protect a village that hated him. Not to mention shouldering _him_ with the burden of defeating some creepy fucker in a mask that wanted to bring the corrupt ninja world to ruin. All the while _dying_ and leaving him behind with nothing. No money... no house... no help. _Nothing_. And to top it all off, he does the the ultimate mistake. _Killing_ him. What... an asshole.

His hate for his father skyrocketed, easily going to the top of his list of things he hated. That man was now his Number #1 enemy. Even more so than Konoha or Soul Society. Though... if he was right, Namikaze Minato was probably happily going through his afterlife in Soul Society without any care in the world. If he were to destroy the Shinigami, and by extension, Soul Society, then there was a great chance that he would run into the man on his excursion.

Kyuubi grinned. He could now die happily, after causing yet another torment for Naruto to endure. And, if he was lucky, then Namikaze Minato would be destroyed by extension. If he wasn't going to destroy anything, then he was sure as hell going to pass on that task to someone else. A legacy, if you will.

Kyuubi laughed again, a wide grin on his face.

"**Now you know ab-"** he was cut off.

Without even looking at the fallen fox, Naruto took down the bar, sharpened it, and thrust it through the Kyuubi's head as quick as lightning. Normally, this wouldn't get the fox dead for long, but Naruto would take the chance to absorb the Kyuubi's power and permanently kill off the fox. The two foxes were still slightly in sync with each other, so Naruto would still be able to take the fox's power just like when he was alive. Only this time,... the power would stay.

The Kyuubi himself had no time to register the sharp bar enter through his eye socket. He continued on with his ramblings, telling Naruto of his death and of his father. He had no idea he was to be absorbed.

And so, the great Kyuubi, the strongest of the Bijuu... died.

At the hands of his own cage, and leaving a legacy...

* * *

It had all happened so fast. He had just killed his long time enemy, the Kyuubi, and before he knew it, he found himself back in the arena. With all remnants of another entity in his mind gone, the stability of the mindscape began to fade. The mindscape began to shake and distort, and once he blinked... it was gone. He was back in the arena, still in the safety of the hole that had been dug for him.

No time appeared to have past, proving that the flow of time was different in the mindscape. But even so, he could feel the scalding power of the Kyuubi coursing through his body and mixing with his reiatsu. He had succeeded. The Kyuubi's power was his.

Naruto gave a lunatic grin. It was time to go wild... and maybe make some friends. Nah, why would he make friends here when he was just going to kill everyone? That was illogical, which is why he thought of it in the first place.

He was still absorbing the power, and yet he was already being drowned in the awesome power. The feel of it... like he could do anything... was intoxicating. But, he was cut off, as during his thoughts about killing, he felt a strong pang of guilt rack his body. Another courtesy of the Shinigami. Just confirming that it had been real.

The mixed feeling of corruption, bloodlust, and guilt was a strange, and somewhat disturbing one. And it was not something that Naruto enjoyed.

But, that feeling would subside soon enough, when Naruto's body began going through... the _change_. It was unmistakable; the sudden condensation of power into a better form. Already it was drowning him in it's powerful grip.

Naruto's body began to morph...

* * *

DONE! Please tell me what you think and review.

Man, this chapter was a BITCH to write. What with Naruto's characterization, the plot twists, not to mention the whole fight with Kyuubi. So I sincerely hope you guys enjoy it. And it you don't, well I'll work on improving.

Adios,

**_The Mexican Archaeological Site_**


	9. Miedo de un Dios

**GloriousHorror**: Naruto threw a wrench in Madara's plan, with his and Kyuubis untimely death. I'll explain what fully happened to him in due time. As for Naruto's goals; yes he will have another goal. More than one actually.

**Disclaimer: **Guess who doesn't own Naruto or Bleach.

* * *

Chapter 9: Miedo de un Dios

Drowning...

As Naruto underwent his transformation, it felt as though he had been submerged into a burning lake of fire. An intense feeling of depraved pleasure had morphed into nothing more than a sensation of pure agony. The power that he had gained for his own benefit was now threatening to consume him, and make him into a mindless beast.

Drowning...

Even now, he could feel it. The rush of the hundreds of souls he had consumed, including Kyuubi's, throughout his entire body. The cold touch of their essences sent shivers down his spine. He could just... feel them eating away at him. Attempting to gain control of his body. Gain control of _him._

He muttered something incomprehensible in the dark, in a shaky voice that seemed to spell complete hopelessness. All of the Hollows, all of their despair, all of their hatred, all of their sadness. All of those things unified under one being, projecting themselves through Naruto, all as one.

There came painful sounding cracking noises from over all areas of Naruto's body. His eyes rolled into the back of his head, and all four of his legs receded into his own body. The voices of the crowd above him faded, and all he could hear was the endless sounds of hundreds of souls fighting inside his mind. His vision blurred, and the world around him began to rock and shake.

He held his front paw in front in face, vaguely sensing the blurry shape and texture. He caught his breath when little pieces of flesh flaked off his paw, all of them joining together to mingle in the soft breeze.

He numbly noted that this was happening to his entire body. His legs, his head, his stomach. All of it. His body was dissolving into dust, yet the sense of burning pain was diminishing. It was like the rapidly enclosing feeling of oblivion numbing him to any sort of feeling.

Before long, he reached that oblivion. His former body was completely destroyed after about a minute of changing., and for a second he felt it as he relinquished control. The unbearable cold chill of nothingness. If he gave in to those other souls; that was what was going to happen to him.

And then, he came back. The flakes of Naruto's body dispersed into the wind, but a shapeless black mass, almost like a silky cloth, formed on the direct spot where he had disappeared. It was surreal. This was the feeling of being bodiless... of being ethereal. Nothing more than a consciousness that existed without a body, hardly aware of what it was doing.

The black mass began to fester, before it shot up towards the sky at much faster speed, twisting around itself as it rose about fifty feet in the air. It displaced dirt as it rose, making Naruto's tunnel even larger than before.

Then, it started to take form. The black mass became a billowing black robe that hid the being's soon to be arms. It grew chalk white legs that sprouted from beneath the thing's robe, with large, pointed feet the same color as its legs.

Its head appeared next, following the same pattern as its torso. Finally, its mask appeared. A vulpine mask similar to Naruto's other one, yet it was flatter with more rounded features. The eyeholes were empty and sunken, and they just stared out into space. It was in stark contrast to the former Naruto's life filled eyes.

Naruto glanced downwards at an impossibly slow rate, surveying his new body. He had just barely wrestled control from the other Hollows he had absorbed, and was thoroughly relieved when he didn't turn out like most of the other Gillian. He was superior than them. He still retained his consciousness. _He _would continue to evolve.

He opened his mouth in order to say something, but the only noise that came out was a low, primal roar.

He tried again, but the result was the same. As he thought about it, he realized that he had never heard a Gillian speak before. Did they have the ability? Whatever was wrong with his vocal chords, he didn't know. But, he had a sinking feeling that he would never be able to communicate with others as long as he was a Gillian.

The spectators were stunned by this new Gillian with the unique mask, and as it roared their attention was drawn to its mask. It was almost exactly the same as that rabid fox Hollow from earlier. That disgusting being had evolved.

Questions exploded in the viewer's heads like fireworks. How had he evolved from right under their noses? How didn't he die from the barrage of Ceros from the Gillian? What rock did he crawl out from under? The fox's sudden evolution was just so ridiculous, even if most of them admitted they were used to the impossible happening in Hueco Mundo.

The other Gillian did not notice the presence of their new brethren, not even when it slowly thundered on over to them and bit a chunk out of the closest one to it. The wounded Gillian roared, before it collapsed onto the ground much like a falling tower.

Naruto chewed stoically on his meal, as the other Gillians finally noticed his presence and swiveled their heads to look at him. He didn't look at them, not even when they began milling directly around him. He broke the circle by eating another one directly to his right, and the slow and unintelligent Gillian were unable to respond as he walked out of the circle.

After around a minute, five Gillian mustered up the organization to all use their Ceros simultaneously on the new one. They didn't even get to use it as they were all slashed diagonally across the midsection in a silver streak before they even got to use their attack. The diagonally bisected Hollows roared one last time before they vanished into dust.

Naruto himself roared when he turned around to view the destroyed Gillian, and was slightly relieved to see Fuermos standing there. He was flaked with dried blood, and his mask wore an bitter scowl, but he seemed relatively unharmed.

"Naruto... is that you? It is, isn't it. You've evolved into a Gillian, and you've had the rare miracle of retaining a conscious. With your personality, I guess that's no surprise, huh? You're so determined and egotistical that there's no way you'd ever fall victim to oblivion... You saw what happened, didn't you... That cataclysmic attack... The attack that wiped out our comrades. You don't care, do you?"

Naruto roared in response, and Fuermos felt a great sadness blossom inside of him due to the loss of his newfound friend.

"That's right, you can't talk. In fact, you probably haven't even noticed that I'm here right now. I must be losing my mind after all that time in prison..."

Fuermos slashed an incoming Gillian. It roared one last time before dissolving into a black mist.

"Us Hollows... we have to eat to survive. But, does that mean we should enjoy it? That we should always adhere to the contraband stereotypes of the Shinigami. I hate eating other Hollows. Every time I bite into their flesh, I hear the cold contempt the Shinigami race has for us. We have at least one thing in common, Naruto. We both hate the Shinigami. I don't know what happened to make you hate them, but when I saw you for the first time in the hive, it gave me hope. That there was a solitary beacon of divine vengeance and justice against the murdering Shinigami. You... were different than most other Hollows, who are simply content to about their lives, uncaring of the effects the Shinigami have on our species.

"I. . . ." Fuermos stopped to stare dumbly into space as the Gillian Naruto completely ignored him, and began chewing on yet another Gillian. It was surprising. This Naruto ate with a slow boredom, in comparison with the former Naruto who ate with greedy relish. Maybe that was an improvement.

Almost like he was anticipating an attack, he pulled himself up from his crouched position, and began to slowly charge up his newfound Cero. The red ball of energy formed slowly, much slower than the other Gillian.

But, as he released it, the red stream of dangerous light tore through a slowly oncoming Gillian, leaving a gaping hole where the creatures stomach would've been. The downed Gillian fell like a skyscraper, almost knocking into some of its fellows as it collapsed.

The Gillian looked at their downed comrade, and didn't even notice anything when Naruto had bit into the shoulder of the closest Gillian yet again. He ripped the black fabric-like substance from the bitten shoulder, growling slightly as the Gillian fell.

One Gillian looked at its fallen companions for an extended period of time, long enough for Naruto reveal grisly, white arms from his cloak. They grasped the Gillians' shoulders, finally prompting the stupid beast to notice.

Naruto and the other Gillian stared each other down for a few seconds, before the grabbed Gillian finally realized it was in danger, and began charging up its Cero. Before it could release it though, Naruto bit into the other Gillians' shoulder blade and tore another chunk clean off. His growling got even louder.

The Gillian released its Cero as it fell, angled slightly upwards. The attack clipped some of the spectators in the crowd, atomizing them instantly, much to the dismay of all the other spectators who weren't killed.

The hissing and jeering drowned out Naruto's growling, though it wouldn't be that way for long as Naruto's growl became a piercing roar, one of being in clearly visible pain.

The jeering from the crowd died down almost instantly after Naruto emitted that awful cry. His reiatsu... it was getting stronger. Much stronger than ever before.

A steam-like red aura was rising from Naruto's body, and Naruto's roaring increased as the mist became thicker and thicker. It even began to form a shroud around Naruto.

A cold ball of anxiety appeared in Fuermos' stomach, seeing the all-too familiar spectacle unfold itself upon Naruto. His haunches drooped in nervousness, and he was unable to settle the feeling in his gut as the red aura completely wrapped around Naruto.

"_No... it can't be. It's ludicrous..._" Those thoughts only served to straighten Fuermos, and did nothing for the intense feeling of emotion that was curled away inside him. He heard Naruto roar again, and realized how ridiculous those thoughts that comforted him were. He was wrong... It was the real deal.

"It's..." said Fuermos in a near silent whisper. The simple word produced more awe than a shocked scream ever could. Naruto was now nothing more than a blank silhouette in the swirling torrent of powerful energy.

A tense silence filled the arena as every being watching the sight unfold before their very eyes. The spectators had stopped jeering; the Gillian stood stock still, not even milling around as they usually do. Only Baraggan showed no visible reaction, though the tightening of his grip on the throne would indicate that he was indeed bothered.

A few of the weaker Hollows fainted, the darkest corner of their minds producing nothing other than raw fear. The animalistic instinct of "fight or flight". And this thing was definitely telling their minds to flee. Flee and never go near here again.

Many individuals caught their breath, as the silhouette of Naruto began to morph. He was rapidly shrinking, his two-legged body once again changing to become four-legged. The red aura thickened even more, and the silhouette of Naruto became fully hidden from view by the thick, dark energy.

And suddenly, the energy stopped moving.

Dead silence reverberated throughout the entire arena, and no one said a word until the energy started picking up motion yet again. It rose and rose in speed, until it intensified to the point where it was buffeting around wildly, long tendrils of reiatsu lashing out at anything that dared touch it. All non-Menos level Hollows in the arena found breathing to be difficult, the intense spiritual pressure smothering them.

Some of the Gillian found themselves being whipped by the red energy, their big bodies serving as a big target for disaster. The reiatsu tore through their bodies like paper, leaving gaping and mortal wounds to any Gillian who got too close.

After around a minute of this, a small explosion was heard coming from Naruto's position inside the vortex. A second one resounded directly after, and then the energy and smoke began to disperse. When it cleared all the way, a fresh Naruto emerged, vastly different from his short-lived Gillian self.

He held a look of satisfied confusion, pleased with what had suddenly happened, yet also greatly confused. His bipedal body had once again changed back to a quadrupedal form similar to when he was a normal Hollow.

He was smaller than before, a large difference in size between his Gillian self. Yet, he looked significantly more dangerous despite his small frame. With the exception of his mask, he was covered in a deep red bony armor, bulky enough to protect, but small enough to be maneuverable.

His mask was more vulpine. More pronounced in its features. Yet, it did nothing to hide the cruel, terrible visage that lurked beneath its porcelain. The fox's gaze was once again evil, and once again mocking.

Spikes were jutting up from various place along Naruto's body, a testament to his new appearance. Smaller spikes were projected from the Hollow's neck, ankles, and knees. Yet easily the most prominent were the two larger twin spikes that jutted out from the top of his shoulder blades.

They shot up before pointing forward in a curve, flanking both sides of Naruto's mask. They seem to shine slightly with an unnatural gleam, which was the most noticeable in the dim light they were currently under.

Claws even more vicious looking adorned the Hollows feet. They looked denser. Sharper. Like they could cut nearly anything to ribbons. Nine tails sprouted from the fox's rear, covered in a thin red armor and poised in a clockwise rotating spiral.

"Adjuchas..." Fuermos whispered, not in fear or awe, but a mutual understanding. "I just don't understand how..."

"Exceso..." Baraggan mused, his booming voice drawing the attention of several nearby Hollows. They had never heard of anything like this before, but apparently their king had.

"I've seen this before. The natural phenomenon even rarer than the Gillians' evolution to Adjuchas. Those Gillian set to evolve to the next stage of existence change after consuming a mere five or six other Gillian."

His servants and guards looked at their king curiously, having never heard of anything like this. Baraggan raised his right arm daintily, an act of disdain against those ignorant fools.

"I'll explain. Hollows gain power by eating the flesh of Shinigami, humans, and other Hollows. In addition, all Hollows have the inherit ability to retain excess power when going through evolutionary leaps. In other words, it means that the gap between the next evolutionary stage becomes closer. However, when Hollows go through an evolutionary leap, their last meal was usually a fairly small source of power, so this ability goes unnoticed by the vast majority of evolving Hollows."

He stared down at the new Adjuchas.

"But, when the Hollow consumes a being of much greater power than them, the ability becomes clear. They evolve much quicker than any other Hollow using a different method ever could. Do you understand?"

A look of understanding and some nods answered Baraggan's question.

"I don't know how that young Hollow managed to do it, but he did. He consumed a very large source of power right before he evolved into a Gillian, and so he was able to evolve into an Adjuchas after consuming a mere few Gillian."

Baraggan took his eyes off Naruto, only to notice very concerned looks. His vassals were clearly worried about Naruto's rapid increase in power. The king stood up.

"This amusing little show has gone on long enough. This has been a great embarassment to all of Las Noches. Our arena fighters fail to best a couple of puny little ants. It's time to end this..." he said. Naruto was already giving a show down there.

The crowd was absolutely outraged.

First Gillian, now Adjuchas. What next?

Naruto reared back his head and laughed uproariously, contrasting his dull, emotionless Gillian behavior. This one had the personality of the original Hollow Naruto. Loopy, flamboyant, and evil.

"I'm back. I'm back! I'm BACK! Yeah! Being a Gillian wasn't fun at all! That big ass body, the lack of talking, and the fact that I was slow as hell! But now I'm an Adjuchas, and I'm ready to spread some carnage once again!" the new Adjuchas screamed to the entire crowd.

The crowd booed him.

Naruto laughed.

"Aww, are you guys happy to see little ol' me? I'm so flattered I think I could cry," True to his word, he started making obnoxious, sarcastic crying noises, falling to the ground because of the "emotional joy".

The crowd screamed in anger even more.

Naruto got to his feet. adopting a serious look on his face.

"Well, it just so turns out I have a special surprise for and every one of you, my wonderful fans out there in the audience." More boos. "I'm putting on a special performance, all about my wonderful and epitimal self, just for you. I will host it in the first cave to the west of Las Noches in one week, so make sure you'll be there. The admission fee will just be..."

.

.

.

"_**Your life,**_" he said scarily.

Silence, and then laughter from Naruto.

"Oops, I guess I can't put on a show for you if you're all dead. Silly me! Guess there will be no show after all. Bet you're all real disappointed now, aren't you. Well, that's too bad, because I won't be able to do it for you."

The crowd hissed, and Baraggan was surprised when Naruto turned his full attention on him.

"And **You!**" Naruto yelled dramatically, pointing up at Baraggan in his balcony.

"I'll bet you're _real_ disappointed. I know how much you love me, gay man. Enough to lock me up in prison for three years and then make me compete in this worthless excuse for an arena. Well, you know what. Here's my response to that.."

The Adjuchas opened his mouth and sucked in a breath full of air. Tiny little particles of orange light gathered at the opening of his mouth, forming the familiar ball shape of a Cero. As the crowd heard the signature hissing sound of death, a sense of dread settled in every one of their stomachs. In the center of the Hollow's mouth, a full-fledged Cero had formed of a gleaming orange color. And he was aiming it directly at Baraggan.

He wouldn't...

Naruto released his Cero, the brilliant orange beam of light racing to where Baraggan was calmly sitting.

The Cero nailed the balcony, being entirely engulfed in the strong orange light. Every Hollow in the stadium turned in pure fear towards their attacked king and god.

Okay, so he would...

Feeling satisfied, Naruto walked on over to where Fuermos was standing, with a dumb look on his face from what had just happened.

"Now you've really rattled the monkey cage," he murmured, just loud enough for Naruto to hear him.

Naruto chuckled. "Shall we go, then? I've got our escape route all set up," he said, gesturing over the hole he had come out of. His demeanor had changed completely, from the crazy slasher to a sane, though still sadistic individual. It made Fuermos wonder what the hell was happening with the fox.

Speaking of the escape route, the mole Hollow Naruto had fought earlier was groggily getting to his feet, using his powerful claws to clamber his way out of the giant hole. The poor Hollow never expected his previous opponent to hop into the air, and come down foot first on his head using a strong, downward thrust.

The mole coughed up blood as Naruto's powerful claws sank into the mole's flesh. His vision blurred and became distorted, though his head was held aloft by Naruto.

"Now, now. You can't fall unconscious on us. That just will not do. You see, you are going to play a pivotal role in my brilliant escape plan, whether you want to or not," whispered Naruto in an eerie voice.

The mole whimpered slightly, scarcely viewing Naruto's scary expression and hearing his hushed whisper.

"**Dig...**"

* * *

Every eye in the stadium, every spectator's mask was turned toward their king's balcony. The orange light had shielded their king's condition completely from view, and after it had dissipated, the smoke that had risen from the rubble created nothing more than a hazy, distorted silhouette of the skeleton.

The smoke cleared after around a minute, but as soon as they found out their king was alive, it did nothing more than increase their fears.

Baraggan... did not take being attacked very well. And when he was attacked, he tended to go on a violent rampage, executing everything in sight. Many Hollows lived in constant fear of those rampages. It truly was the fear they had of their god. It was not to live in fear of his power. It was to live in fear of his previous actions. _That_ was true submission.

When he rose, the whole stadium buckled. A putrid purple mist was coming from his mouth, and even though it was slight, it was enough to begin rotting away the material that made up his balcony.

The Cero had scalded the entire area to Baraggan's right, and it was clear that Baraggan had batted it away with one hand. Still... the fact that _He_, a God had been attacked; it left a bitter taste in his mouth.

By mere ants, no less! The ants had somehow been able to avoid all the dangers of his arena, and with some massive bullshit that involved the vulgar fox Hollow evolving _twice_, had defeated all of his Gillian.

Now, although the experience was humiliating and degrading for him, he wasn't stupid. Just because they defeated his arena fighters by no means meant that they'd be able to defeat his army. Hell, just one of his personal guard would be enough for them.

Speaking of which, his personal guard was standing poised stoically right beside him, six powerful Adjuchas ready to fight to the death for their king. He was about to motion for them to finish the job, when he noticed something curious down on the field.

There was a stout mole Hollow, one of his judging by the insignia, who was being forced to dig a path for the fox Adjuchas. Within five seconds, the fox Hollow had disappeared into the earth, the firefly Adjuchas following up the rear a few seconds later.

Baraggan could've screamed in absolute rage. First, those little ants make a big mockery of the greatest competition he could think of, and now they believe they could away with it scot-free. He lowered his hand, deciding not to send his guards after them through the hole.

"_They'll have to surface eventually. It's impossible to burrow out of the palace because the hard material goes underground as well. Though, they might not resurface until the very last minute. Which means I'll have to..."_

"You!" pointing to the guard directly to his right, who stood up straight.

"Place the entire palace on lockdown. Do not let a single Hollow in or out of these walls," he ordered. The guard bowed to his master, and with a quick "Sire" he disappeared. With the first guard gone, Baraggan turned his attention to the guard on his left.

"And you, gather all the main forces and capture those two renegade Hollows, for committing the crime of avoiding divine judgement. Alert all of my vassals to their presence and order them to report to the local authorities if they spot the fugitives. Once you have captured them, bring them directly to my throne room."

Baraggan paused, his face holding a look of determination.

"I want to deal with them personally..."

* * *

Chapter 9 finished!

My shortest Chapter in the story so far. But, I wanted to finish up the scene in the arena.

I must say though, it was shorter than I had anticipated, but Naruto and Fuermos have made their big escape from the arena, and all of Las Noches is searching for them! Oh noes!

Anyway, it's not a pivotal chapter, but I hope everyone will review it anyway.

Translations and other features:

Exceso: Excess

So good bye. I'll be working on the next Chapter of One Twentieth of a Whole, so this one won't be updated until after that.

Bye,

_**Alban55**_


	10. Bloqueo de Las Noches

**Darth Void Sage of the Force: **This fanfiction is is no way based off of Planet Hulk.

**Sephirotx: **In order of your questions, Naruto will not be paired with anyone. Naruto is pretty much at the strength of a normal Adjuchas at this point in time, maybe somewhat weaker due to his recent evolution. And actually, the Adjuchas class of Menos is roughly equivalent with Shinigami Vice-Captains, not 4th to 8th seat Shinigami like you thought.

**Malefan**: Naruto isn't the highest class. The Vasto Lordes are above him.

**Tianna M.V.A.: **Well, I'm personally not going to do an offshoot of the Shinigami winning, but a few months ago GameDemonKing asked me if he could write a story on where the Shinigami was saved from the Hollow. However, I don't know if he still has plans for that or when it will come out. As for Kakashi, he'll be meeting lots of canon characters, but not until much later in the story.

**Attention all Readers! I have a very important announcement to make! I NEED someone to translate Japanese for me! I know this may seem unprofessional of me to ask, but I don't know much Japanese and there will come a point in this story where I won't be able to advance it if I don't have a translator. If you are interested in being my translator, please PM me as soon as possible. DO NOT, I REPEAT DO NOT talk about being a translator in your reviews. That is not what I want reviews to be. I will also post a note at the top of my profile telling everyone I've found a translator. (Also, if you could translate for One Twentieth of a Whole or any more of my stories, that would be fantastic!)**

**Thank you,**

**Alban55**

On with the Chapter then! And Happy New Year!

* * *

Chapter 10: Bloqueo de Las Noches

Naruto watched as the mole Hollow dug his way through Las Noche's underground, a rabid grin on his face while he continued to slave drive the abused Hollow. Fuermos was crawling right behind him and the mole. He hadn't said anything since their escape from the arena, and seemed to only dumbly follow him with an unreadable expression on his face. He was being an enigma; that was for sure. Before any of this, before the arena, he always liked to talk. Even when they were trapped in that prison Naruto spent much of his time talking to Fuermos. But now... there was nothing.

The mole slowed a bit, prompting Naruto to sink his claws into his hostage's back to force him to dig faster. The mole Hollow grunted, any resistance or snarky comments would lead to constant claws in the back. His only chance of survival was to dig these bastards out and swiftly slit their throats as soon as they breached the surface. He was still yearning to finish the fight, to put down that fox Hollow in the name of Las Noches.

How stupid of him, he realized. The fox was an Adjuchas now, and the only way he could hope to kill him was to catch him off-guard. So, the mole Hollow continued to dig their way out, clods of sand and dirt being spread in a sporadic pattern.

The earth parted as the group of three reached the surface, and a messy hole meant to accommodate the three Hollows appeared as a small dot on the Las Noches' landscape. The mole Hollow pushed his way out first, collapsing on the ground from exhaustion. He had been digging for almost five hours straight, and that slave driver of a Hollow had worked him to exhaustion.

Naruto came up immediately behind him, using his sharp claws to push himself out of the hole. As he looked around, he noticed they had surfaced in a wide, particularly flat area. Large crimson pillars rose up hundreds of feet above the landscape, towering over their miniscule frames like a powerful god ready to invoke judgement on them. There was a collapsed building some distance away, but the rest of the area around here seemed to be nothing but sand. The Hueco Mundo night sky loomed straight above them; the artificial sky that would be put here in later years was not in existence yet.

The mole Hollow was staring at him intensely, but Naruto ignored him as he helped Fuermos out of the hole. The insect Hollow gave a grunt of acknowledgement, but otherwise said nothing.

Fuermos let go of his claws as soon as he was out, and then began to brush off the sand that coated his body.

"You okay?" asked Naruto. The mole was still staring on him.

"Y-Yeah..." Fuermos said quietly, turning his eyes to the right to stare at the ground. The mole Hollow began to rustle.

"Good. But, we can't stay here forever. All of Las Noches is bound to be looking for us considering I attacked their precious king. Fortunately, there seems to be no guards or soldiers around that would hinder our progress, but we're not out of the woods yet."

Fuermos nodded, deciding to speak for the first time to preserve his life.

"That's right, and we have no idea of our location within Las Noches. It could take hours or even days to reach one of the gates out of here, and for the time being we're sitting ducks. To get out, we'll have to avoid any large congregation of Hollows. But, there's also sentries placed at many points around Las Noches. Even if we avoid the highly populated areas, the chances that we will be found are very high."

Naruto frowned, allowing his rational side to do the thinking for once. But, it wouldn't think for long because he the whooshing noise of the mole Hollow trying to sneak over to him with his claws at the ready.

Naruto ignored the mole Hollow, instead focusing all his attention on his companion in front of him. He didn't even flinch when the mole tried to bury his sharp claws deep inside Naruto's jugular vein.

The key word here is _tried_. The mole Hollow _tried_ to sink his claws in Naruto's throat, but they were stopped when the claws hit the tough exterior of Naruto's body armor, and did not penetrate the Hollow's skin.

Sparks flew and the mole Hollow roared in pain as his precious claws snapped in half as easily as a brittle piece of driftwood. The mole brought back his right paw, hiding it so it wouldn't get even more injured.

Naruto finally blinked, before his face split into a grin, and then finally rude, raucous laughter. He sauntered slowly on over to where the mole Hollow was sitting, ignoring Fuermos' questioning gaze.

Before the mole Hollow could even react, Naruto had already picked up the helpless creature. Holding him at arm's length for about a second, he slammed the poor Hollow into the dirt, creating a miniature crater as he did.

The mole Hollow felt his ribs crack, and blood rose into his throat until he couldn't take it anymore, and coughed it out. Was it really useless all this time? He really couldn't kill the fox Hollow now that he was an Adjuchas, could he?

"Satisfied? You just had to go and try your luck against something that you couldn't beat. And look where you are now, grovelling in the dirt over some claws that you lost by merely attacking me. Even before this you couldn't match me, so what made you think you could now?"

His speech over, Naruto picked up the mole Hollow yet again, dug his claws into the Hollow's arms, and using careful precision, made sure his victim was in as much pain as possible.

Fuermos couldn't look at this. He couldn't look at the closest thing he had to a friend, and see him do this. He hadn't had any friends during _those_ days, and after spending so much time with Naruto, he was about to see his hopes and dreams crushed under the unbearable truth.

He cursed himself... he knew he was more like a human than a Hollow. But, as much as he cursed his own pathetic emotions, he cursed the world around him more than anything. Why would it let him be such a being of compassion and idealism when it was so disadvantageous to be so?

He finally closed his eyes after he heard a thick scream from the mole Hollow, followed by more laughter. He opened them after the screaming subsided, and to no great surprise, nothing but intense brutality awaited his vision. He didn't know how Naruto could have such a blatant disregard for his own species. Though, Fuermos supposed he could blame his own silly expectations again. Of course he was capable of something like that.

Naruto had used his shoulder spikes in a manner he didn't believe the fox Hollow capable of thinking of. The mole Hollow's entire body was hanging from Naruto's right shoulder, hanging like a limp rag doll down to Naruto's feet, where a red puddle of blood painted the sand.

Impalement... that's what is was. Naruto's shoulder spike had appeared on the other end, through the mole's backside, while the barely breathing Hollow had slid down the spike to hit Naruto's body. This in turn drove more spikes into the suffering Hollows torso.

Fortunately, Fuermos' life as a Hollow and the atrocities he had seen numbed him to the pain, so he avoided vomiting at the sight or even becoming enraged at it. But, as he saw the small mole Hollow impaled by his friend's spikes, horribly clinging on to life while suffering extreme agony, he knew he couldn't deny it anymore.

A part of him still wished it to be true, but the sneaking sensation that this little fox Hollow would be the savior of their species was dead wrong. What a fool he was. It was a simple hunch in the first place, and even with the decisiveness he had never seen in another Hollow, Naruto wouldn't save anyone.

If anything, he would lead Hueco Mundo into ruination.

He had to be stopped.

Naruto wasn't paying any attention to him; he was much too busy relishing in the mole Hollow's pain. He didn't even hear the rustling of the sand as he got up.

But, he knew he was too late to save the unfortunate Hollow now. He had hesitated too much, and as soon as the firefly Adjuchas was fully standing, Naruto finally got bored of his victim, and promptly slit its throat without a second thought.

Naruto then thrust his right shoulder outwards, and with a sickening tearing noise, the carcass of the mole Hollow was released from its cruel impalement spike, and was thrown forward a distance away.

That was when Fuermos struck, and Naruto never expected it. The insect Hollow was fast, and his motivation seemed to do nothing but increase his speed and strength. His vicious, curved pincer caught Naruto straight in the cheek, and Naruto was sent flying backwards into the dirt, a small cut present where Fuermos had hit him.

Fuermos waited for the Adjuchas to get up. The area was silent, and Fuermos stood there watching ahead, like a stone statue, his pained gaze patiently waiting for Naruto's rebuttal. He knew right now; that this would not be an easy fight.

"What are you doing, Fuermos?" asked Naruto tersely, his voice creating a suffocating tension in the air. There was rage, there was a deep sadness; there was a great confusion, but there was no trace of the psychotically happy Naruto that had been traveling with him the past three years. Fuermos couldn't tell if that was a good thing or a bad thing. The Hollow's voice, Fuermos didn't know why he hadn't noticed it before. Every word he spoke was tinged with anger and hatred, years and years of emotional turmoil spilling out into the monster that stood before him now. The Hollowification must've just been the trigger for him to become this...

There was too much hate... too much rage, for it to just exist because of his life as a Hollow. But, Fuermos didn't know if he was imagining it or not, but he thought he could see a faint, faint bit of caring, of compassion, deep within Naruto's existence. Even if that were the case, it was being completely swallowed up by his hatred.

The Hollow's gaze was no longer friendly, no longer amiable. It was just pure hostility. Like the Hollow can sever his previous friendships and bonds within a split second. Fuermos didn't reply, and opted to do nothing more than glare in Naruto's direction.

"Do you have a problem with me, Fuermos? All that wonton killing getting to your head?" Naruto asked. Even when angry, he always found a way to mock someone. Though this time, it was neither teasing nor happy. It was serious.

Fuermos still said nothing, but he was seething on the inside. He brought his pincers to the forefront, and his bio-luminescent parts shone even brighter.

It was a good thing that he did defend, because Naruto had already disappeared from his spot, and had reappeared adjacently to the other Adjuchas. He spread his claws wider, but Fuermos was ready. He caught each of Naruto's front paws with his pincers, and the two of them stood there in a tug-of-war like fashion.

Naruto pulled his paws back, and using careful balance on one of his back legs, swung all nine of his tails around in a circular motion. This may look ridiculous and ineffective at first, but the sturdy armor that completely covered the tails managed to pummel the opponent. Fuermos was hit several times with the flying appendages, and the hard armor he was being hit with managed to draw up some blood.

Fuermos managed to push away the offending tails, but Naruto soon retaliated by using his forefront tail to put Fuermos into a chokehold. He stood there quietly for a little while, making sure his choke attack was starting to take effect.

"I'm still waiting for my answer, Fuermos. What problem do you have with me? Is it the killing? Or is it something entirely different?" asked Naruto. He loosened his tail's grip on Fuermos' neck, before bringing it back fully to join the spiral of tails.

Fuermos stumbled slightly, leaning down to catch his breath. He never stopped glaring at Naruto, his anger for him only increasing after Naruto's assault.

"Do you know why I even joined you in the first place, Naruto?" he asked rhetorically.

Naruto had the decency to look slightly confused, wondering why Fuermos would start his explanation with another question.

He looked up at the Hueco Mundo moon; the only universal thing capable of calming all Hollows.

"I joined you... because the moment I saw you, I believed that you would bring universal betterment to all Hollows. That quick decisiveness coupled with a dogmatic view against the Shinigami is exactly what we need to overcome them. At the very least, I hoped you would become the personal adviser to Baraggan, and influence his actions on the world of Hueco Mundo. I... never knew Baraggan to be so hot-headed."

Naruto sneered, looking thoroughly unpleased with Fuermos' speech. His stance was rigid, his eyes cold, and he was irritably hoping that Fuermos continued.

"But, now I see that all is ever was... was a blind hope. A hunch, and nothing more. I can see now that was being a fool. I can see now... how black your removed heart is. All the killing, all the brutality, all the unspeakable acts; they are the reason I have decided to stop you here. You will not be the savior of our race. You will be our destruction if you're allowed to roam free."

The world was near silent, and only the slight running wind overturning the sand echoed throughout Las Noches. Then, as Fuermos was staring Naruto down, there was a slight clapping noise. The clapped escalated, then there was the sound of a cold, cruel laugh echoing in the area.

"What a brilliant speech, Fuermos, but I'm afraid your disgusting idealism ruined it for me. _You_, of all people, are telling me that all the killing I've done is bad. You're a Hollow, and you have no right to hold any moralism or idealism. Looking at you now, you're more suited for being a Shinigami, despite how much you seem to hate them. So save bullshit like that for the Shinigami, you little chickenshit."

Fuermos looked highly offended as his beliefs were put into question. He was about to retort, but Naruto was already closing the distance and attacking them. The Adjuchas blocked both of Naruto's front paws yet again.

"You'll find yourself a minority here in Hueco Mundo, Fuermos. Part of a minority of those fucking moralistic shitrag Hollows that rarely inhabit this land. Trying to purge Hueco Mundo of those Hollows and creating a better society is something that is near-impossible."

Fuermos looked worried as Naruto began to get the advance on him. The insect almost tried to let go of the claws and avoid, but the other Adjuchas was not about to let that happen. Using his superior agility, the Hollow flipped skyward using his hind legs, so that his tails and back paws were facing the sky. Using the momentum he had build up, the Hollow grasped the pincers with the paws, and as he fell he flipped Fuermos above his head so he would go crashing into the ground.

The awkward attack paid off somewhat, as the force was against Fuermos, and he did in fact go crashing into the ground. Naruto, on the other hand, had landed on his feet quite easily. Fuermos grunted as he hit the floor, even if the sand broke his fall somewhat.

Naruto looked back and grinned as Fuermos rose to his feet. He looked disgruntled, and the green material on his back was glowing brighter now. Naruto showed his serrated teeth, before opening his maw. His signature orange Cero formed inside.

Fuermos watched the ball of light warily, careful about it but not looking too concerned.

"_He's too quick for me to get him with hand-to-hand combat. The only way for me to win is to use my abilities carefully and rely on quick thinking. I wonder... is there anything around here that I can use to my advantage? It's a wide open plain, so resources and stealth are out of the question."_

"_His will and strength are too great for me to manipulate with my light, but it's worth a shot at least._" The green light glowed brighter.

The point-blank Cero was fired from Naruto's mouth, but Fuermos side-stepped to the left to avoid. Naruto himself seemed to predict this, and he disappeared in a flash to reappear near his opponent.

Fuermos' eyes widened.

"_Damn, looks like he figured out how to use Sonido. I don't have time to-"_

A thrust with Naruto's right hand with gone through his head, but Fuermos managed to block it with a swipe of his hand. Fuermos stumbled backwards, but Naruto held his ground to press the attack further.

He feigned another thrust of the claws, which Fuermos tried to guard on impulse. He didn't realize his mistake until it was too late. Naruto pulled his right arm out quickly, then put both his front paws out there in a cup formation.

Before Fuermos could react further, a Cero had already been formed in the crevice of Naruto's paws.

Fuermos charged up his own Cero, which was the light green of the crystals that coated his body.

The two beams of light hit each other after fired, neither one of them able to gain any ground each other. They actually began to merge at one point, but after a few seconds, Fuermos was forced to withdraw as the beam overwhelmed him.

Naruto was still on guard when the light dissipated. Indeed, Fuermos was about twenty feet away from him at this point, and was still quite alive and kicking, despite all the serious burns that covered his frame.

He was bending over on the ground, coughing up blood and smoke. Even then, the green bio-luminescence hadn't dissipated at all, nor did Fuermos look like he was ready to give up. The firefly struggled to his feet shakily.

He didn't say anything again, and only flared his pincers out again as Naruto seemed to come in for yet another attack. He looked at the green bio-luminescence on his arm, before it rapidly changed to a foggy, grey light.

"Influencia," he muttered, and a bright flash of green light blinded the oncoming Hollow.

"Desconcierto!"

Naruto reared back, blinded for a short time. Shortly before, he was attacking with the full intent of thrusting his spiked arm straight through Fuermo's abdomen. As he stopped, his mind become numb. Almost like he was in a daze. The world became silent, and he could hear nothing but a slight whirring in his ears.

And then... it happened. There was a faint voice, deep within his mind. Prodding... pinching. Trying to get him to do a certain thing. It was telling him that he was Fuermos, and that he should attack himself. He knew such a thing was ridiculous, and despite that notion, his confused mind seemed to believe it.

His arm was raising against his will; it was struggling, but it was in fact raising. Once fully stretched outwards, Naruto sent a blank look at it through half-lidded eyes. Gravity wasn't against it anymore, so it would be far easier to be manipulated.

His mind was telling him to thrust backwards, and he did. The spikes that were present on his arm penetrated through the bony, red armor on his body, and delivered a painful wound to his stomach.

The pain jolted Naruto back to his senses, and he gasped and coughed up blood. He ripped the spikes from his body, before glancing at the blood covered weapons. There were four large holes throughout his abdomen, right where the spikes had penetrated.

He looked around; Fuermos was gone. Where could...

He stopped thinking when he saw a large shadow coming down on him from behind. A shockwave exploded when pincer met with claw. A sneak aerial attack from behind; Fuermos was getting more and more tricky to fight. He steeled himself for another light attack, and was not disappointed when Fuermos' light changed to green.

"Influencia-" said Fuermos again, as the green light flashed again.

Naruto tensed, closing his eyes in an attempt to avoid the deadly light. He opened his eyes when he felt Fuermos take his pincer off his claw.

"_Oh shit! A feint attack!_" he thought.

Naruto gasped and flew backwards when a powerful kick caught him straight in the ribs. He skidded through the sand, the dirty substance and friction causing more problems for the already wounded Hollow.

He climbed to his feet, but Fuermos was already on his way.

"_It seems my Influencia is working at least slightly. I managed to confuse him with the grey light, but it took some effort on my part. If he strengthens his willpower, I'll be hard-pressed to be able to manipulate him. All the colors of my light induce a certain effect on an individual's mind, but anyone with conscious thought can throw it off easily. For now, I'll try..._"

"Influencia." The light changed to yellow.

"Apacigua!"

The yellow light hit Naruto full on this time, and he had no chance to close his eyes and avoid the attack. When the light subsided, Naruto felt no change, unlike what had happened the last time. There was no prodding voice, nor numbness of the mind.

He shook himself around to test it, before he laughed suddenly, and then reappeared at Fuermos' side again.

"Your little trick didn't work on me, Fuermos! That will cost you big time!" he shrieked, as he whipped his tail out to attack.

He stopped. At the last moment. He didn't know why, but as soon as the attacking appendage was about to hit Fuermos, his mind was telling him that he couldn't go through with it. He just froze in mid strike, but when he looked up at Fuermos' face; he knew the trick had worked after all.

"And now to finish you off with..." Fuermos' changed his light to purple.

"Influencia."

"Parálisis!"

Naruto's eye's dilated as the purple light washed over him. His mind was screaming at his body to move, yet it wasn't responding. The entirety of his being stood still, only slight shakes visible to the trained eye. His eyes were darting to and fro, searching for an escape in vain. He noticed that Fuermos' light had turned to red after the fact.

"Influencia."

"Ataque Rojo Mortal!"

Fuermos' only attack light thrusted forward and impaled Naruto's straight through the right lung in a narrow line of blood red light similar to a laser. The fox Hollow grunted in pain, and collapsed heavily onto the ground, blood rapidly flowing from his wound.

Fuermos looked frustrated; Naruto had broken out of his paralysis at the last second, and moved in order to prevent the attack from being fatal. It was made even worse because of his taunt.

"That stupid light could never hold me for very long, _idiot_. And the red light attack was about as damaging as a bee sting," Naruto croaked, lying through his teeth to make Fuermos feel bad.

That sardonic smile, that _infuriating **EVIL**_ smile was on his face, and it remained on his face even as Fuermos walked up to him and kicked him right in the head viciously.

"You-." Kick. "You-" Kick. "_**You-**_" Kick. Kick. Kick. That word was all that Fuermos could say as he repeatedly kicked Naruto in the head, desperately attempting to wipe the smile off Naruto's face. Fuermos' usual look of composure was replaced with a distraught, panicking expression.

"How could you be so vile? So heartless? Even for a Hollow you have no redeeming qualities. What motivates you to do that? What could you achieve by acting in such a manner? Tell me! Tell me, Naruto!"

Naruto laughed loopily, cheering and whooping to the sky. He turned to Fuermos, his smile growing even more vile.

"You want to know?" he asked dangerously.

Fuermos growled at the Hollow, and kicked him one more time. He was certain that the answer he received would either make no sense or actually worsen his opinion of Naruto.

"Well... I'll tell you Fuermos. The reason I act this way is a-" he paused for dramatic effect.

"Combination of Hollow behavior and personal satisfaction."

Fuermos paused, a look of morbid curiosity on his face.

"What-"

"Let me explain. You, Fuermos, are a rare exception to Hollow's. You actually have _compassion_. I may have gained some semblance of compassion with an unfortunate encounter in the arena, but I'm doing my best to stamp that out. Most Hollows I've seen that exist in this world act without compassion. They kill for food, yes, but they often have fun while doing so. I, however, have a long standing goal that is more than just food. My goals are the top priority in my life, but who the hell says I can't act on my Hollow behavior and have some fun while doing so?"

While Naruto was explaining this, he snuck one of his tails behind Fuermos, who seemed even angrier at that response.

"Why yo-"

_Squelch_.

With all the force of a bullet, Naruto had directly thrust his hidden tail in the exact same spot where Fuermos had injured Naruto. It penetrated the muscle easily, and Naruto stabbed his tail in as deep as he possibly could, before pulling it out with a squelch of effort.

Fuermos roared in pain, taking two steps back from Naruto, clutching the wound he had gotten.

Naruto was already rising to his feet again. He stood up straight and looked proud, despite the heavy wound on his torso.

Blood ran from Fuermos' mouth as he clutched his wound, and he glared heavily at Naruto.

"Y-You b-bastard. You w-were faking it a-all along?"

Naruto grinned.

"I'm not gonna get caught by your fucking light tricks anymore. I've already figured out how to throw off all of them. And, you should really think things through before you decide to go have a nice conversation with a fallen enemy, _duuuuummmmmbbbbassss_" he drawled.

Fuermos growled, then screamed at Naruto, his veins bulging and his reiatsu increasing.

"Ataque Rojo Mortal Doble!" he roared. Twin beams of red light flew from Fuermos' body, aiming to put more holes in Naruto. Naruto deftly flipped over the first, before casually spinning over the second, pretending to be afraid all the while.

Naruto charged a Cero and fired it. He whined when it missed its mark and flashed to meet Fuermos, not noticing the orange reiryoku gathering on one of his tails...

Fuermos was still recovering from his last attack, and was unprepared when Naruto appeared at him, wanted to get in a tail strike. Both combatants were surprised when instead of a tail strike, a bright orange crescent of reiatsu flew off of Naruto's tail and struck Fuermos straight in the stomach.

He barreled back a great distance, far more than any of his attacks did to Naruto. Naruto himself just stood there, stunned at what had just happened.

"_What was that? It came from my tail, but I didn't know that I could do that. It looks reiatsu-based; does that mean I can manipulate reiatsu with my tails?"_ Naruto looked giddy at that thought, but it changed to thoughtfulness as Fuermos rose.

"_Only one way to find out._"

Fuermos stood, mind reeling on what kind of attack that was. The attack seemed kind of like a compressed Cero, but it gave him a nasty gash wound in his abdomen.

"_If Naruto learns a new attack here, then I'm in deep trouble now. I had a hard enough time keeping up with him regularly. I'll just have to hope that attack was just a fluke, and then press him with more red light..._"

He tried to look at his back, which was the only part of his body completely covered in the crystalline, green substance.

"I'll have to use my strongest light attack for this. It's risky, as I have to take my eyes off my opponent, but it'll be the only thing capable of taking down Naruto at this point. Though more than three shots of that, and I'll tire myself out too much to fight anymore..." he whispered to himself.

Naruto meanwhile was testing out his new attack, and managed to replicate it without too much effort.

"Alright, I think I've figured it out. It's just like a Cero, just manipulated. Heh, reminds me of all the shape manipulation I did back in Konoha. I guess they were good for something, after all. I'm still gonna crush them, though," Naruto giggled.

His happy thoughts were cut off though, as his attention was drawn to little blips of red light that somehow made their way into his vision. He looked up, and noticed that it was Fuermos, standing thirty feet away with his back exposed to him. Indeed, the red blips of light were all over his back. They were perfectly uniform, and there were twelve in all.

"What's he doing? If he takes his eyes off me, he's just asking to be-" his eyes widened as he came to a realization.

"Oh, shi-"

"Rayo Espalda Rojo!" yelled Fuermos. The little blips of light expanding to go forth at about fifty feet, resembling a laser with its red sheen and energy. Naruto barely managed to get out of the rays, but Fuermos was ready for another round.

The second round of beams was when Naruto wasn't so lucky. He managed to mostly avoid the grid of lasers, but one beam clipped his shoulder, while another fully nailed his left legs.

He stood there in agony for a few seconds before the laser dissipated, trying to limp away.

"La Curva!" Naruto gathered reiatsu into his tail, and flung it to form the familiar hook of energy that injured Fuermos earlier. Fuermos was already preparing for the final attack, and couldn't sense the oncoming energy.

The hook of energy wounded his entire back, forcing him to stumble and cough up blood.

"_No, I must complete it. He's crippled, and this is the last chance I'll get to take him out!"_

The final set of beams was ready for firing, and Naruto knew this. His injured leg made things difficult to move, and there was no way he'd be able to fully avoid this last set of beams. So, he did the best think he could think of; he ran towards Fuermos, gathering reiatsu on three of his tails. That was his limit; he knew he couldn't form any more reiatsu on his tails simultaneously.

The final set was released, and Naruto was hit four times throughout the torso and legs. The lasers disappeared, and Naruto resisted the urge to fall to his knees and admit defeat. Fuermos would be unable to avoid this attack.

"Las Tres Curvas!" Naruto yelled, flinging his first tail at Fuermos. For some reason, his other two tails didn't launch the attack. Maybe he had to wait and start a new motion.

Fuermos sighed in relief. He heard the attacks connect with Naruto, but he hadn't turned around to see the Hollow defeated. He wondered how many holes Naruto was filled with now.

His attacks over, Fuermos decided to turn around and confirm Naruto's situation. Indeed the first thing he saw was his opposing Hollow. There were six holes littering his body. The first from his original red light attack, there were three through his legs, and two through the right side of his torso. Each hole was equal and size, and they were bleeding profusely from all of them. He could also see through the holes, showing that his beams had impaled right through him.

But then he saw the orange curve of light coming right at him. It nailed him right where his first wound from that attack was. The reiatsu whirred and vibrated, cutting into the already wounded flesh and drawing up blood.

The firefly gasped and stumbled backwards to the right, barely managing to keep himself upright after that.

But then, Naruto fired a second curve of orange light. This one caught Fuermos in the legs, and it forced him down to his knees.

He was breathing heavily, blood pouring from his mouth, when Naruto launched his third one. He panicked, his life flashing before his eyes as the orange beam of light quickly approached. He was slashed, diagonally across his Hollow hole. The firefly gasped for breath, his eyes wide and bloodshot, as red blood shot in a stream upwards.

The top half of his body teetered and wobbled, before, when in an instance where time impossibly slowed down... collapsed onto the ground face first.

Fuermos choked on his own blood. He couldn't move, and his entire body felt like it was on fire.

"_This can't be happening! I can't... I won't be beat!_"

But, as the firefly Hollow gurgled out blood, he knew it. He was beaten.. He was dead... killed at the hands of this Hollow. This _vile, unspeakable_...

"_Wait..."_

An unfamiliar thought worked it's way through Fuermos' mind, and he remembered a conversation he had had earlier with Naruto.

"_I may have gained some semblance of compassion..._"

Fuermos' mind somehow became clearer, and he those words continuously repeated themselves throughout his head.

That's right, Naruto did have some slight semblance of compassion. It was very miniscule, and almost completely overwhelmed by the hatred... the monster. The very same monster that was approaching him right now with a limp in his steps.

He was going to die; his injuries were too deep, but in one last fleeting moment, he hoped to be able to appeal to Naruto. He knew right now that small bit of compassion would not save Naruto's hometown, but he wondered, would it be able to listen to the one being that managed to befriend him in this godforsaken place.

No matter how much he loathed Naruto now, no matter how much he didn't want to do this, he knew he had to. It was the only way... to keep his dream alive.

* * *

Holy shit, was this Chapter fun to write!

I just got so immersed in it. There were also a shitload of new techniques that were showcased. As well as the LONGEST fight in the story to date, so please tell me what you think about that in a review.

Also, the first Las Noches arc is drawing to a close. There should be about two more Chapters in it before we can move on to something new. At the very most, it'll be three Chapters.

**Translations and Other Features**

Influencia: Influence

Desconcierto: Confusion

Apacigua: Pacify (Imperative Form)

Parálisis: Paralysis

Ataque Rojo Mortal: Lethal Red Attack

Ataque Rojo Mortal Doble: Double Lethal Red Attack

Rayo Espalda Rojo: Red Back Beam

La Curva:The Curve

Las Tres Curvas:The Three Curves

After a boatload of translations, that wraps things up for this Chapter, so I'll see ya next time.

Please Review

Happy Trails,

_**Alban55**_


	11. Experimento de la Sociedad de Almas

Hmm, no real questions to be answered this time. Oh well. . . .

Here's Chapter 11, folks. Quite the interesting Chapter I would say.

And... a special thanks to my new translator, Aeo15! He will help me get Chapters out on schedule, and I won't have to put this fic on hiatus to learn Japanese!

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or Bleach, but it seems to me like the ownership has changed.

* * *

Chapter 11: Experimento de la Sociedad de Almas

Naruto... didn't know what he should've felt at this moment in time. As much as he hated to admit it, for better or for worse; Fuermos had been his only real companion throughout all the trials he had faced thus far. Those three years in prison, well; he doubted that they would have been as bearable if he had been alone.

His conscience was telling him things he was loathe to do, but since when did he ever listen to his conscience? Fuermos had betrayed him, that was that. He should now be no different than everything else who had betrayed him, and Naruto owed him nothing in the first place.

But no... that imprint of a conscience his Shinigami self had implanted in him wouldn't allow himself to think that way, and he was doing all he could to resist that. His claws were out and his teeth were bared, ready to tear into that broken, crumpled heap that was once an Adjuchas.

But, for some reason, when he walked up to the dying Hollow, the look on his face stunned him. It was the look of a broken individual, one that had been through so much in his lifetime. He knew that expression very well; it was one that he had commonly worn during the early stages of his childhood.

As he approached his beaten opponent, Fuermos had managed to pivot his body to the right, and Naruto noticed that the insect Hollow was staring at him. Even in a broken state, Fuermos couldn't stop fixating him with powerful gazes. It didn't have much effect on Naruto of course, but looking at him now; it seemed his former friend wanted to tell him something.

With a motion so tediously slow, Fuermos managed to move his right pincer so it was pointing straight at where Naruto was standing. He seemed to open his mouth to speak, but all that came out was a puddle of blood.

"N-Naruto, I k-know this may b-be too m-much to a-a-ask," the words finally came out, but he stopped to cough after that first sentence.

"I-I want y-you t-to listen to m-me one m-more time," he wheezed.

Naruto, for all he was worth, should've finished him off right there, or at the very least should've spat in his face. But, for some reason. . . . he didn't. He thought about it of course, but at the end, something made him hesitate. You could call it that single shred of a conscience working inside his mind to make it stop, but. . . . Naruto would just dismiss that and call it morbid curiosity.

Naruto snarled at Fuermos' words.

"You've got some nerve trying to get me listen to you after what you just pulled. Tell me why I should listen to you, the words of a dying and broken Hollow that just attacked me earlier. It's probably more of your idealistic bullshit anyway."

There was a sudden increase in Fuermos' breath, like he was getting nervous. However. . . the fact that Naruto hadn't immediately killed him off was a slight reassurance at least. It meaned he was contemplating it.

Fuermos said nothing, and continued to stare up at Naruto, a slight condescending look entering his eyes.

Naruto sneered, baring his putrid fangs harshly.

"Okay fine, whatever. Since you have been travelling with me for so long, and maybe the closest thing I could call a "friend", I will listen to your last words and grant you this one little mercy, and blah blah blah blah blah."

Done talking, he lumbered over to a nearby rock and sat himself down upon, his eyes dully fixated upon his former friend. Fuermos met his gaze, feeling slight regret that he had no one to tell his story except this Hollow.

There was a slight stinging in his eyes, and he felt something wet drip down the skin underneath his mask. Was he crying? He didn't know; he hadn't done it in so long. Hollows don't cry. But. . . . Fuermos wasn't exactly a normal Hollow. The intense feeling of regret. . . . on his failure of a life. . . . would never appear in other Hollows.

His lip wavered against his will; he was so tired. So very tired. He just wanted to rest; to forget all of this. To pass if off as nothing more than a bad dream. But. . . Fuermos knew that he couldn't do that. Whatever the case, the gods above had dealt him a very bad hand in life, but if he tough it out and pass this information on, then he could rest in peace.

"Well. . ." Fuermos faltered for a second when Naruto grunted something about time wasting, but continued his story anyway.

"I-It was q-quite s-some time a-ago. . ."

* * *

_Fifty years ago. . ._

Many, many Captains have existed throughout the long history of Soul Society. And with these Captains. . . came a vast number of improvements to the Shinigami race. Cultural. . . . Techological. . . . Medical. The genius minds of the Captains and their subordinates helped efficiency with the Gotei 13.

For example, Urahara Kisuke founded the Shinigami Bureau of Research and Development along with his duties as the 12th Division Captain, and technological inventions such as Soul Candy made their way into mainstream Shinigami protocol.

But, this is a time where Urahara Kisuke, and many other innovative Captains have not even burst onto the scene yet. As such, the Shinigami Bureau of Research and Development did not even exist yet.

It was a simple result of the great step of progress. This was before the time of great thinkers; before their ideas as well, and Soul Society was in a less advanced period of time. Oftentimes, it was as simple as "go into the human world, Konsou a soul here and there and purify Hollows".

But. . . . that was not to say it was always that simple. The 4th Division's medical facilities existed under Unohana Retsu, albeit much less advanced than they would be in the future. There also existed an institution called the Institution of Experimental and Scientific Research, a little known branch of Soul Society's military government that could be called the predecessor to the current Bureau of Research and Development.

The small organization of close-knit minds would later fade into obscurity, as the Central 46 decided to disband the group and cover them up. Shinigami history books were rewritten and the individuals who knew about the institution would be sworn to secrecy.

Why, you might ask. Well. . . . it was because of a certain _incident _that occurred during the heyday of the institution.

* * *

Fuermos was a Hollow that didn't believe in the mass killing of humans and Shinigami. But, that was at a time when he was naive, and his naivete is what got him captured so easily. He noticed the dim light and dripping of water, and the musty smell was a dead giveaway that he was underground. But. . . Fuermos already knew that. How couldn't he; he had already been here for almost a year.

The young Adjuchas cursed his curiosity. He was a Hollow who fed on the flesh of his own species, and as such he rarely made any trips into the human world. But, when he did, it was never to sample the flesh of the living. No, what compelled him to travel to the human world was simply curiosity. He had yearned for the experiences, and a background other than the drab and gloomy Hueco Mundo night sky.

But sadly, his reputation as a Hollow preceded him. After a few visits into the human world, he had met a group of Shinigami led by a Vice-Captain. Now, Fuermos was an Adjuchas, but he didn't have many special abilities. He was skilled at physical combat, but he had no reiatsu or energy-based attacks. He had a tough time, but managed to ward off the Vice-Captain and his underlings.

But, he was not to be completely lucky in battle that day. After he had battled the Vice-Captain, who he thought to be the last one standing, an ugly bald Shinigami who he had knocked to the ground earlier had managed to constrict him with a powerful bakudo, sealing his movements and leaving him at the mercy of his captor.

He would never forget the face of his captor as long as he lived. The cruel, mirthless grin that showed dozens of repugnant yellow teeth that hadn't been taken care of in years. His deep sunken eyes seemed only appropriate on a head half his size. His disgusting lard-filled body distended as the Shinigami approached, rancid green pox spots littering his body like a noxious decoration of mold.

He vaguely noticed the gate back to Soul Society open, but he almost missed it as he was being roughly dragged around by the yellow reiatsu rope that constricted around him. The reiatsu rope tightened even further as the Shinigami's fat, grubby little fingers wrapped themselves around the edge of the rope. With yet another leer at the downed Hollow, the Shinigami walked slowly towards the gate.

The return trip to Soul Society was pretty bad. The Shinigami made sure travelling was as bad as possible. The friction of the ground cut into his skin, and his captor purposely backtracked a few times just so he could extend the experience.

He blacked out soon after they had passed through the Dangai, but the brief view of Rukongai would be etched into his mind forever. The depressed souls that wandered the barren streets, thirsty and disease-ridden children, and slums for as far as he could see. This. . . . wasteland was _the _Soul Society everyone was supposed to yearn for. In comparison to the clean and white Seireitei, this place was hell.

When he awoke, he was in for quite the change in scenery. Gone was the bright sun that washed over the land, and here was the dank, moldy black cell in nothing but pitch black darkness.

Fuermos groggily shook himself awake, his head pounded. He ran one of his pincers across his mask, and with relief noted that nothing on his mask had been damaged.

A dim blue light drew his attention then after, which caused the Hollow to turn his head to bars of the cage. They were the objects covered with the blue light, and it's shimmery, luminescent glow was almost hypnotic to the eye.

Fuermos reached out to touch it, but as soon as he did, a sharp jolt of pain reverberated throughout his entire body, sending his nerves and spine tingling. He hissed and backed away from the cage instantly, and while doing so heard a deep, cold laughter come from the outside.

There was a figure standing outside of his new cell, and although the figure's face was shrouded in darkness, it's rotund body and lack of visible hair gave away who it was immediately.

"Don't bother, _Adjuchas_." sneered the Shinigami.

"You are the property of the Institution of Experimental and Scientific Research now, and those bars have been reenforced with the Bakudo of our strongest user. So just sit tight and don't make any noise. You'll join the others soon enough. . ." he finished cryptically.

"_Others. . . _" thought Fuermos, still confused over the whole ordeal. He had no idea what the "Institution of Experimental and Scientific Research" was, but to be quite frank, the thought of this situation terrified him.

He was trapped in enemy territory.

So, for weeks he waited and waited. He didn't talk, he didn't move, and he didn't give his captors any reason to pick on him. On his second day in captivity, he caught his first glimpse at the disciples of this place. They didn't look like normal Shinigami; they didn't wear black hakama or tabi sandals. Instead they wore white lab coats and large, clunky boots that protected their feet from dangerous materials.

It was also the day when he learned he was not alone in this room. The same moment when the scientists had entered the room, they walked all the way to the end of the hall, where the plucked, to Fuermos' great surprise, another Adjuchas that had apparently been in a cell much like he was.

This particular Hollow seemed to be having a really rough time with it. Before taking it from the cell, one of the scientists used a fairly strong Bakudo to restrain, and then proceeded to drag it out much like the Shinigami had done with him a couple days ago.

As the two scientists passed by his cell, he had to look away as he viewed the expression on the captive's face. It burned in his mind for a few moments; that look of panic and hysteria. Would the same happen to him later? He didn't know whether he would have the same reaction, but as the the Hollow passed through the door at the end of the hall everything became quiet, and not even the slow dripping of the water could disperse the thick tension that had spread itself throughout the room.

"There goes another one. We won't see that one again until the scientists have had their way with us as well. It won't be long now until yet another one of us goes beyond that door of no return," came a raspy voice directly to Fuermos' right.

There was a sudden murmur of agreement, and Fuermos, not expecting the reaction. This was the first time he had heard any of the other Hollows speak.

"For God's sakes, brat, get a hold of yourself." came the voice again, and Fuermos knew that it was addressing him now. He was breathing very hard and loud, and he had smashed into the bars in surprise when he had heard the voice speak.

Fuermos slowed his breathing down, and edged closer to the right cautiously, almost as if waiting for the voice to speak again. When it didn't, Fuermos asked a question he almost didn't want to.

"Who are you?" he asked, his own voice sounding stark and gravelly after a few days of disuse.

The voice growled, as if taking offense to a question like that.

"My name's Braxxicos. I'm just your standard, run-of-the-mill Adjuchas. Two years ago, I was on a trip to the human world to eat some humans when this group of Shinigami ambushed me. One of the members took me back here, and I've been in this cell ever since. This institute; they secretly plant their members within a squad of Shinigami, and they take Hollows back to their Hq alive for work on their perverted experiements."

Fuermos breath hitched in his throat.

"For what reason?" he asked.

"Something about "For the good of the Seireitei" or "Make the enemy your own". Apparently they believe that if they experiment on Hollows they can brainwash them into making them their obidient little slaves, and give them abilities so they can better fight off their own kind. At least, that's what I heard one of the devoteés say. They haven't proposed their idea to the Central 46 yet, so right now they're working on this top-secret project away from Seireitei's prying eye. Working on something without the Central 46's permission is treason though, and I don't know what they're thinking."

Fuermos almost croaked when the Hollows around him started whispering to each other.

"Anyway, I've seen Hollows come and go into the room, and I'm starting to believe that the scientists here have forgotten about me. But. . . every one of the Hollows, no matter how stupid they might be is prepared for the day when they'll be the one that is dragged unwillingly into the back room. That door is God here; we have no idea what happens behind it, but it reigns supreme over us with it's morbid mystique."

After Braxxicos had finished, Fuermos began pounding his head against the cell door, ignoring the pain that shot through his system as he touched the blue light. He roared and shrieked, but no one came. The bars didn't fold, and the cage didn't open.

Braxxicos listened as Fuermos went through a panic attack, his face and body language betraying no emotion. He let Fuermos continue, and it wasn't until an hour later when the noises finally ceased, instead being replaced with silent convulsions.

"It's no use doing that, kid. You're stuck here with the rest of us. Only the scientists out there know your day of reckoning. It may be soon, or it may be later. There's no way to know when it'll come, so stop panicking!" Braxxicos raised his voice near the end.

A quiet whimper arose from Fuermos' throat, and even though Braxxicos couldn't see, the Adjuchas twitched slightly.

Braxxicos sighed.

"You're quite the unusual Hollow. Most of the Hollows here are either stupid, or they're so hardened that they don't fear what's beyond the door. But you. . . you're different. You have a different. . . . fire. I can feel it. You're not that much like a Hollow; if anything you're more like a human. . ."

Fuermos didn't respond to that, and although he was opting to ignore the Hollow in the next cage over, he would find himself quite amiable with him during their time in captivity.

* * *

It had been over a year since Fuermos had been captured by the Institution, and both he and Braxxicos were never chosen to enter the room at the end of the hall. They had witnessed many Hollows come and go, and now only about half of the original Hollows when Fuermos was first captured still remained in their cells. The latter half had been taken.

In the meantime, Fuermos had grown quite fond of the mysterious Hollow in the cell to his right. Braxxicos enjoyed talking to Fuermos about his life, and especially about his exploits. To Fuermos' dismay, he learned that Braxxicos had a kill count of over five thousand humans and twelve thousand Hollows; a fact he greatly prided himself on.

Fuermos had called him out on that, but Braxxicos did nothing more than laugh heartily and call him different than other Hollows. The old Hollow never lost his spark, but the year in prison was beginning to take it's toll on Fuermos. He hated the Shinigami now, hated them for what they did to him, and what they are doing to everyone else. He hated them for leaving Rukongai to rot, while they live on with their cushy little livestyles. He hated them. . . . for being at the top of the world. The corrupt bastards who make all the laws, determine how the world should be run, all the while leaving any species who isn't them out in the cold.

He could sense. . . . that Braxxicos hated them as well. Every time he spoke of them, Fuermos could practically feel the thinly veiled hatred pouring off each and every one of his words. When one of the scientists entered the room, he slathered the air with pure killing intent, one that would make any human piss their pants.

That was the most interesting thing about Braxxicos. . . . his hatred of the Shinigami. Not his reasons, as they were same as anyone else's here. He hated them for imprisoning him for three years. What was interesting about his hatred for the Shinigami was his _dream._

Braxxicos had told him about it one day while they were talking. His crazy dream he had developed after doing little more than thinking for the past three years. It was so stupid that it was stupid. It was so ludicrous that it was ludicrous. But, it was probably the single most beautiful Fuermos could've ever heard in his entire life.

_"Fuermos, I know you probably don't want to hear this, but I have a dream I want to fulfill if I ever get out of this alive. The Shinigami are getting way out of hand here, and our very species is in jeopardy if the Shinigami get much more advanced. In my opinion, we need to take them out now and break the stranglehold they have over the world. With the Shinigami out of the way, us, the Hollows, can reign supreme over the Seireitei. We can live in Soul Society, and be permanently free of the Shinigami. We can build our own society of Hollows, and out territory will not just be limited to Hueco Mundo. . ."_

_". . . and we can eat as many humans and souls as we like. . ."_ He didn't say the last part.

Fuermos felt a warm feeling enter his system as he thought about those words. But then, questions started to pop into his head, and he retreated to the dark recesses of his cell. Could they really build a society of Hollows. Would he really not have to live in Hueco Mundo anymore, and be free of it's untamed wild and natural glory. To be free of the Shinigami. . . . the thought made him giddy, but he knew it was almost without hope. They were trapped here, in the underground reaches of the Seireitei, and they had little power to be able to fight their mortal enemies.

The slamming of a large, metal door brought him back to reality, and out of the corner of his eye he witnessed three of the scientists directly to his right.

"_It can't be. . . ._"

Fuermos panicked, but remembered not to touch the bars of his cage. He heard a thumping noise and a grunt come from Braxxicos' cage, followed by the three scientists apparently making room for something.

And then. . . ., he saw it. He locked eyes with Braxxicos for the first time ever. The old Adjuchas was small, much smaller than Fuermos, and resembled a blocky humanoid. He had earthy brown skin, and a humanoid torso and legs. His mask was form-fitting to his face, and jutted out at both of the corners near his chin.

Braxxicos grinned cheekily at the bewildered and frightened look on the young Adjuchas' face, even when being restrained by Bakudo and being dragged to his doom. The look on his face was slightly sad, showing resignation but at the same time he stood strong, filled to the brim with pride. A pride that everyone should have.

Fuermos' stood limp in his cell, and was too shellshocked to make any motion even as the door slammed behind Braxxicos.

The room was silent, and Fuermos lost the only friend he had ever had during his time in captivity. . . .

* * *

Six more months passed during his time in captivity, and Fuermos saw neither hide nor hair of his old friend. Since Braxxicos had been taken away, Fuermos had felt a renewed fear of what was to come beyond that door. He sank in the darkness of his cell, neither talking nor moving yet again. One look at him and you would think he was comatose. His skin was turning a ratty brown color, and the labored breathing of his body told no secrets.

He quickly garnered a reputation as the most senior Hollow in the group, most of the others being no more than new, fresh captives for the institution. The other Hollows would occasionally make lewd comments about him, but Fuermos ignored those as if they weren't there.

When his time came, he barely even looked up at the scientists in front of him. He was too weary of it, of all of it to even think about what he was going to do now. As the cage opened, and as he was bound with Kidou, the only thing he could think was how was Braxxicos able to keep himself filled with pride?

The door became nearer and nearer, and he felt the eyes of every Hollow in the room watching him. He knew this wasn't surprising; he often partook in this himself, but being the one watched, it was a whole other experience.

After what felt like an eternity, the door opened slowly, and Fuermos was finally graced with the knowledge of what lied behind the mystery of this door. There was a small hallway at first, which would've been just as dark as his cell had there not been another door on the opposite side where light filtered.

The room on the opposite end of the hallway wasn't quite what Fuermos expected it to be. It was an incredibly large multi-floored circular room that must have measured 150 feet in diameter. There were three sublevels. The one he was on, the top, was little more than a passageway and a circular balcony to view the floors below. On the second sublevel, it was of a similar structure to the top sublevel, but there was more room for walking, as well as more extensions outwards. This space could be filled with things such as tubes, laboratory equipment, and other necessities needed for the institution.

Looking at the second sublevel; Fuermos saw something that made him feel slightly naucous. The Shinigami scientists. . . . working alongside Hollows. Adjuchas, much like him, he realized. Several he realized, he had personally seen being dragged from their cells to beyond the door. But. . . . they were barely recognizable. They had been so tampered with that Fuermos couldn't comprehend it.

The most unified thing that was on the Adjuchas' face was their lifeless expressions. Clear indicators that they've been brainwashed into becoming nothing more than the slaves of the Shinigami. It was this that made Fuermos the most uncomfortable. Basically, it was just a horrible backtrack to their previous lives as mindless eating machines. By becoming an Adjuchas, Hollows develop a chance. As proven by Baraggan's kingdom, even Hollows can work together and live in something resembling a society. But now. . . after being completely stripped of their free will. . . they have gone through the one thing that every Adjuchas fears. . . .

Regression.

When they were in their cells, the technicians had fed them very small, weak Hollows to prevent them from regressing into Gillian. But now. . . . there was no difference. Being a Gillian actually sounded more appealing.

Other, more physical features were also present in the Hollows. Some had grotesquely disproportionate limbs, so much that it was difficult for them to lumber about. A few were filled with giant crater like holes of lumpy skin that steamed and oozed a disgusting green puss that was congregated in the center of the holes. On their wasted skin, blisters began to form all over their body due to the sheer acidity of their own puss. Others looked like they were melting, as goop like liquid that was once their skin dripped off every few seconds. Some were even stuck together in groups of four or looked like they were going to phase out of existence entirely.

This was obviously the Shinigami's attempt to increase the combat abilities of their captive.

The final sublevel was incredibly small, but what it contained was the most important thing of all. It was a large, blood-stained operating table with numerous Kidou straps around him. Encompassing around it were a myriad of different operating tools and strange, noxious liquids and chemicals. There was a tube about twenty feet in diameter, which contained a foul, green liquid. It had just been opened recently, and if Fuermo guessed right, it was meant to contain the Hollows for a short period of time.

This was his destination, and his captors were leading him straight too. In the most cruel way possible, he was forced to look at the numerous Hollows that were experiemented on as he travelled down the flights of stairs to the table.

He was dragged along forcefully, until when he reached the table, a very large Institution guard hoisted up the Adjuchas Hollow and placed him down on the operatiing table, and before he could even react, he was already bound to the table with the straps.

He looked to his right; there were large amounts of beakers, each one holding an even fouler solution than the last. A bright light shone down on the Adjuchas, and before Fuermos shielded his eyes he saw four scientists, now wearing medical outfits instead of their normal lab coats.

"This one is especially lucky, Taichou. We've discovered a special hardening material that reflected certain wavelengths of light. These wavelengths of light influence the mind of other Hollows. If this succeeds, it should be a great contirbution to the war against Hollows.

The Captain, and Chief Operator of the Instituion of Experimental and Scientific Research nodded. A tall, lean man with a thin, pointy mustache, looking positively delighted at this new development.

"Excellent, with this new material, we can bring turn this never ending war against the Hollows in our favor. We can spread the word of our Institution's Superiority, and we must let those fools at the Gotei 13 and Central 46 know that the Hollows must be destroyed at all costs. And the only way to do that is to send their own species at them."

"Yes, sir!" said the other three technicians.

The Chief Operator grinned.

"The old man's methods are too soft. All the evil that exists in this world is the result of Hollows. War, famine, disease, death; it's all a result of Hollows! Don't you forget that! Only with the control of their species can we have a perfect world. Now, give me the scalpel!" he ordered.

The Chief Operator held his hand out, and the nearest doctor handed him a blade that was much too big to be an ordinary scalpel.

As soon as he held the large blade, the Captain shrugged.

"No point in being gentle here, really. . ."

His musings done, the Operator roughly jammed the scalpel into Fuermos right pectoral muscle. Fuermos roared in pain, but that didn't stop the Chief from sawing through his pain with all the precision of a buzzsaw.

The operator cut all the way through in a circle, and ripped out several layers of Fuermos' skin in an instant, and threw the silver hunk of flesh haphazardly behind him. Fuermos roared some more, his underlying muscles being visible to everyone.

"Show me the solution quickly, and we'll see how well it works," commanded the Captain.

Yet another doctor walked on over to the table to Fuermos' right, and grabbed three beakers of a toxic looking green liquid.

"Quick! Quick! Pour it!" yelled the Captain.

The doctor obliged. Right where the hole in Fuermos' skin was, the doctor poured in the sickly green liquid until it completely replaced where Fuermos' skin was. In morbid fasnication, Fuermos and the scientists watched as the green material slowly hardened to a crystalline substance.

But, that wasn't where the solution stopped. Other than harden, the unnatural substance slowly began to merge and graft together with Fuermos' skin and muscle, becoming just as much a part of his body as everything else was. It was horrendously painful of course, and it burned, as was apparently by the high amount of steam that was rising from the area.

When it was done, the doctors cheered. The green substance had managed to perfectly graft together with Fuermos' body, and now there was a crystalline green patch present where there had been smooth silver skin before.

The Captain stopped laughing after about thirty seconds.

"We're not done yet! We must do more!"

And that was exactly what the doctors did. Over an hour of brutal, torturous operation, the technicians cut out the poor Adjuchas' skin, and replaced with the abominable green solution. They operated on his arms, his legs, his neck, and all over his back. By the time they had finished, Fuermos was littered with large, green crystalline patches that gave off an dim, eerie green light.

He was truly an abomination; a walking freakshow even by Hollow standards. When they brainwashed him into becoming their slave, he would be no different than all of the other Hollows in this room. He needed to escape, he had to escape. Isn't it strange that Braxxicos' dream would be ringing in his head right about now?

"Quick, get him into the tube! Brainwash him into becoming our servant! This masterpiece must serve the Institution for as long as we are alive!" yelled the Chief.

Fuermos barely registered the Chief's words in his minds.

"Nooooooooooo!" screamed Fuermos at the prospect of being brainwashed.

And then. . . . as if a miracle had occurred, a powerful green light burst forth from the crystalline substance on Fuermos' body. It shone throughout the whole room, and scientists and Hollows alike turned to gaze at the hypnotic spell.

Time passed. Thirty seconds. . . . and then

All hell broke loose.

Hollows broke free of their mindless state just to get a glimpse at the hypnotic light bursting forward from Fuermos' body. They had to get there. . . . by whatever means possible. Ignoring the protests of the Shinigami, the Hollows jumped from the ledge down towards the operating table.

Several Hollows knocked into tubes containing a deadly liquid. The glass smashed readily and the acid on the inside splashed all over nearby scientists. They screamed as the acid ate away at their clothes and skin. They run to and fro in pandemonium, trying desperately to get to water, all the while knocking into more things and causing more damage.

The Chief Operator and his disciples tried to fight off the oncoming horde of operated Hollows, but they were no fighters, and they were quickly and easily crushed to death by the hulking beasts coming their way.

One of the Hollows landed at the foot of the operating table, jerking it forward. The Kidou straps snapped like a twig under the intense pressure.

Fuermos fell onto the floor nearby, looking the nearby Hollows who came from all over to stare at the hypnotic light. Despite his misfortune, he smiled a little. Now he would be able to fulfill Braxxicos', and by extension _his _dream. . . .

* * *

"So, the Shinigami experimented on you, and you escaped by pure luck, it that right?" asked Naruto. Naruto had listened to the entire story in a rare moment of stoicism, but on the inside, his feelings would be quite different.

"T-That's right. Afterwards, me and the r-rest of the Hollows managed to escape back to the s-surface of the Seireitei. The Central 46 were a-alerted to the a-actions of the I-I-Institution, and l-labeled it an act of t-terrorism. E-Every surviving m-member was i-imprisoned for l-life. They w-were going to go after us as w-well, but we m-managed to e-escape back into the h-human world."

Naruto stood up from his rock, and stared at Fuermos with an intense feeling. What it was, Fuermos couldn't place, but judging by his increased breathing, something about his story had bothered the young Hollow greatly.

"So, let me get his straight. Your final request of me is. . . ."

The world was silent, and then Fuermos spoke in an all serious voice.

"L-Let my dream live on. Take down the S-Shinigami, and form a s-society, a s-safe haven for us H-Hollows. _Please, _Naruto. I'm b-begging you, here. T-That's the only thing I want. W-With it, I can die h-happy. I k-know I was w-wrong to a-attack you, and I'm d-deeply sorry. So _please_. . ."

Naruto sighed, and looked at the absolute pleading look, the desperate grovelling look that was on Fuermos' face. He truly was a broken spirit, who had gone through so much in his life, and was rewarded so little.

He was banking _everything_ on this one. . . . final. . . . . thing. Without it, well, what was left?

He leaned down towards Fuermos, and made full eye-contact with his former friend. He held it there for a few seconds, before he smiled lightly. A genuine smile. . . a kind smile. A feeling of hope blossomed in Fuermos' chest. Naruto had never acted this way before.

Naruto kept the kind smile on his smile, all the while not breaking eye-contact. And then, he said. . . . . . . . .

.

.

.

"...No. . ."

_Slash!_

The one word. . . . . the one word. . . that forever crushed Fuermos' hopes and dreams under a simple two letter

No. _No. **No.**_ . . . .

And then. . . . . silence.

Without making his mark on the world, the kind Adjuchas known as Fuermos died, in the most cruel, vile way possible. By building up his hopes with a phony smile, and crushing them under it's filthy, iron boot. . .

* * *

As soon as Naruto had slit Fuermos' throat, the kind smile that had grown on his face was replaced by a purely malicious one. He had crushed Fuermos' dreams into the ground, and was feeling great about it.

He kicked the corpse a little more, delighting himself in the way it moved. And then, with a final glance back at it, he turned and walked away, but not before talking to himself for a little bit.

"You know, Fuermos, I guess I really will fulfill that dream of yours now. After all, something in your story found a resonation within my slimy, black heart. I myself have been subjected to the feeling of experimentation, and knowing that they do it as well makes my blood boil and my hatred for them grow even stronger. Now, I will make sure they are wiped off the face of this planet, and I suppose I'll try to set up a society for Hollows, though I'm not sure if that'll go too well. . ."

He breathed out.

"But. . . . you will die never knowing that your dream will never come true. How does it feel? I supposed it hurts, doesn't it. All that work you've done to strive towards your dream, only to have that hope crushed with a single action. I wouldn't have told you anyway I'd do it. . . . . cuz I'm not that nice, ya know. . ."

Because he didn't look back at Fuermos, Naruto didn't realize that the body of Fuermos had already disintegrated. . . .

* * *

Woot! This chapter is done!

Now, a lot of you probably hate me now for putting a _flashback _chapter in there. Please don't stab me! But, this will probably be the only one of those in the whole story. And I promise that we're going to finish up the Las Noches arc next chapter and move on to bigger and better things.

Until next time,

_**Alban55**_


	12. La Misericordia de Dios

Aw, I've been getting such nice reviews lately. But, for all those good reviews for the flackback chapter, a couple have slipped in involving threats and insults. Unfortunately for them, the things that they said turned me on. . . . (perverted masochistic giggle). . .

Naw, I'm just kiddin'. This here Chapter isn't a flashback, so that should satisfy all those who were pissed at me last chapter. . . .

Disclaimer: I don't own Fuermos, but Naruto and Bleach are mine. Wait. . . . . . that's not right. .

Over 100,000 hits! Thanks!

* * *

Chapter 12: La Misericordia de Dios

In Hueco Mundo, quick actions were key to a Hollow's self-preservation. The slightest amount of hesitation... the slightest amount of moral doubt could get you killed, because no Hollow would ever hesitate goring through you in nothing more than a bloody attempt at finding food.

That... was Fuermos' greatest folly. Moralism had absolutely no place in Hueco Mundo. It's do or die, and Fuermos' generous regard for the Hollow species is what had got him killed. He believed Hollows were better than they actually were. He believed _Naruto_ was better than he actually was. That was what his dream was centered around.

Naruto... didn't have that sort of moral obligation. He was bound by no one, and nothing other than his twisted hatred for Konoha and the Shinigami. But... that ridiculous dream that Fuermos had, by some crazy coincidence, some of their past had coincided with each other, and it all come down to two things...

.

.

.

...Experiments... and the Shinigami.

Naruto wasn't stupid; he knew that with every Hollow's attitude, it would be next to impossible to form any semblance of a working society. But, with him going to destroy the Shinigami, he might as well take their territory for Hueco Mundo as well, so it would be mutually beneficial if he did something like that. And... lying and saying he wouldn't fulfill it, well... Naruto just called that his punishment for attacking him in the first place.

In some twisted way, Fuermos' dream may become true; he just never would see it come to fruition or know that it would. No one would ever remember Fuermos the Adjuchas, who had had a great wrongdoing done against him by the Shinigami, and who had a big dream, in such an unforgiving world. He had never left his mark on the world, like he wished he would...

Naruto, on the other hand... well, his time was just beginning...

The small Adjuchas that was currently trudging through the sand away from his dead former friend, trying to avoid an entire kingdom that was after him. His bad mood from the confrontation with Fuermos had subsided, yet he knew he couldn't smile yet. Las Noches was a gargantuan palace, and it would still be a long way before he could reach the front gate of the great palace.

The infrastructure wasn't difficult to navigate though. The Las Noches' army, and many other high-level Hollows that had fallen into Baraggan's favor resided in large, asymmetrical buildings dotted throughout the landscape. As long as he avoided those, there were only a few outposts and some other settlements within Las Noches.

The Hueco Mundo moon loomed above his head, and he thought about how much he missed it during his three years in prison. It instilled a peculiar restless reaction in him, but more importantly, it could be used as a guide. The moon always faced north of the palace, and going by that it would mean that the front gate was in the directly opposite direction of the moon.

The Hollow actually started to get a little bored, as when he walked through the sand, he ran into no outposts or guards that would've tried to capture him. Rather, he just walked along for hours on end at the same speed, looking at the strange architecture within the palace. Naruto for one wasn't a fan of monotony, and one could blatantly knew how he felt about it when he slashed through a pile of rubble in frustration.

He could see the front part of Las Noches in front of him, but previous experience with Las Noches and the tiny looking objects in the distance told him that his sense of distance was being thrown off again, and it would take him hours to actually get there. He looked at the small objects, and if he had to take a guess, there were likely a few settlements of Las Noches Hollows living there.

The objects became larger as Naruto bounded throughout the palace, and before long Naruto could see that they were in fact settlements. Towns for the non-combat Hollows in Las Noches.

"_Well, as non-combat as you can get in this place._" Naruto mused. He had a sneaking suspicion that every Hollow that existed in this place was forced to fight for the palace. They lived in Hueco Mundo after all, and this was no place for pacifism. Baraggan had to get to the top somehow.

Naruto grinned viciously, and wondered how much chaos was in the kingdom on a daily basis.

"What a rotten king..." he said out-loud. He chuckled to himself, before his stance went rigid.

The smile was wiped off his face as he thought he saw a shadow out of the corner of his eye. It was to his right, in a small tower than jutted out of the sand about forty feet away.

He subtly looked at the tower, before a slight smirk appeared on his face. The shadow appeared again, apparently believing it was being sneaky enough to remain hidden from his view.

"_Not stealthy enough..." _he thought, as he opened his mouth slightly to form a Cero. It was better to take him out now before it attacked him.

"Graggh" came a voice from the tower as Naruto released the Cero from his mouth. The orange light completely engulfed the small structure, and when it was visible again, most of the limestone was completely unharmed, but as Naruto looked into the tower, he saw a heavily charred figure leaned up again the wall of the second floor.

It twitched for a moment, before it went completely still, a brutalized black figure against the untarnished stone. Naruto ignored the body, opting not to take a dietary break, and just continued trudging through the white sand, evil eyes scanning for an enemy onslaught.

"_A guard... and an outpost. They don't look much different than any other building in the landscape; they have almost the same architecture, only the outpost was a lot more narrow. If I'm not careful here, I could receive a Cero in the head before I could even react..."_

The town was beginning to sneak up on him as he walked up a small hill. The limestone buildings were becoming slightly more pronounced than just little dots upon the epic landscape. But as he got closer to "town", Naruto realized that there would likely be more guards in a congregated area.

The settlement was just at the bottom of this hill, and Naruto could hear the various sounds that permeated the area. There was muffled shouting, a strange whirring noise, and a big bang. Naruto grinned; the grisly sounds of battle and death always brought a smile to his face.

He felt a strong headwind come from the north, and it made his spikes stand on end. He shook himself warm, and was just about to walk by the settlement when a good-sized piece of parchment smacked him right in the face.

The fierce Hollow grunted in annoyance, his claws darting up to his face to grasp the piece of paper from his mask.

"Huh?" he asked out-loud while studying the dirty piece of parchment. What was drawn in black ink on the top half of the paper looked something like a crude, caricature of him, complete with an elongated mask, larger claws, and a goofy, out-of-place look on the drawing's face.

The bottom half of the paper said, **Wanted! For crimes against the almighty God-King Baraggan Luisenbarn-sama. Either alert nearby guards or engage if found!** There was something about a reward there as well, along with a required prayer to Baraggan.

Naruto hissed at the poster; how did Baraggan manage to get this out so fast? He screamed in frustration as he ripped up the paper, before shoving it into his mouth, making muffled noises as he ate.

There came another bang from the settlements, and as Naruto looked down towards it, he locked eyes with a small Hollow that was standing near a crude hut on the outskirts of the village.

The Adjuchas glared forcefully at the Hollow as its eyes widened profusely. It shook in its step, and began sweating profusely as it slowly backed away from Naruto.

"It's the Mask Remover. **It's the MASK REMOVER!**" it shrieked as it hurried back into the main part of the village. Naruto groaned in frustration, and just as he was backing away from the now hostile village, he heard hundreds of fierce roars come from within its interior. But, as he backed away from the settlement, he saw several humanoid shadows come in front of his.

Naruto stood on his hind legs, and pivoted one-hundred eighty degrees. In a fluid motion, he slit the throat of the ambushing Hollow, a soldier from the look of the insignia on its torso. He hopped in the air, and sharply kicked the dying Hollow onto one of its fellows. He pounced on that one as well, planting his feet on the disoriented guard's shoulders. The guard attempted to slice him to bits, but he stumbled because of his off-center gravity.

The guard make a choking noise as Naruto placed his paws on the soldier's neck, when then turn into a scream when Naruto tore the poor Hollow's head clean off. The muscle and sinew was no match for Naruto's strength, and it tore off easily, gushing a mountain of blood and tissue when it did.

Naruto vaguely heard another soldier shout something at him, but Naruto jumped off the body just as the offended guard fired his Cero at Naruto. The only thing it ended up hitting was the corpse of the Hollow Naruto had just killed.

Naruto's ears twitched when there came a small rumbling coming from the village behind him. It sounded kind of like. . . . . .

... Footsteps...

And maybe some galloping.

And there were hundreds of them.

"_Oh shi-_" Naruto thought. "_That Hollow has already rounded up a posse..._"

Naruto turned to run away... after he saw the group coming after him. Hundreds of Hollows, normal ones, Adjuchas, and even a few Gillian were slowly making their way outside of the settlement.

"Hmph!" he grunted. One of the guards, a restless young Adjuchas with an animal skull for a mask, had managed to get in front of him and land a fierce hit in his stomach with the spikes that he had for hands.

He had purposely gone for a non-fatal spot, so that the encounter would not kill him, but only cripple him instead. With his wounded stomach, the fox Hollow almost crumpled to the ground on one leg, but used his other to support himself and keep upright.

He stood up for a second, preparing to fight again, when he was hit from behind by some blunt force. One of the Hollows in the posse had used a projectile attack to hit him squarely in the mask.

Naruto saw bright colors, as well as a very large outpost about 100 feet behind the score of guards. How could've he been so stupid to miss it?

He didn't have time to dwell on it for long, as a few of the Adjuchas guards began to gang up on him, punching and kicking until there was a barely conscious Naruto lying in the middle of a small crater.

The Adjuchas guards stopped suddenly, laughing and jeering down at their prize. They were going to get Baraggan-sama's reward for capturing the fugitive.

The bleary Naruto looked up at his captors. His world was spinning, and in mind he saw hundreds of them, all the same, looking down on him with those contemptuous glares of theirs. He opened his mouth to say something snarky, but all that came out was some choking and gargling noises.

The last thing he saw before he blacked out were some iron shackles...

* * *

When Naruto awoke, the first thing that bothered him was the lack of the Hueco Mundo crescent moon. He didn't know how long he had been unconscious, nor did he know the place where he had been taken. The look of the architecture was a clear giveaway that he was in fact still in Las Noches, but other than that he didn't know his position.

It was a very large room, colored both light blue and turquoise. In front of him, there was a large, ornate doorway that led out to a long hall. And, two guards were flanking the doorway, looking at him smugly. He didn't want to stay here, but he knew that if he tried to leave he would have to engage those guards, causing a ruckus and probably more guards to come.

There were no windows, though some artificial light was filtering in through the wide doorway. As Naruto put his feet on the tiled floor, he noticed he was sitting at a long, turquoise table, with tall, narrow chairs that had to have some level of importance.

There were four big chairs on each side of the table, and two chairs at the foot of the table, one of which he was sitting in, his quadrupedal appearance making it quite uncomfortable to sit in the chair. He looked directly forward at the head of the table, only to see the eleventh chair completely turned around.

Naruto rapped his front paws on the surface of the table. Despite its grand size, the room he was in was surprisingly sparse. There was nothing inside this room besides the long table, and there were no decorations or furnishings on it.

The room was completely silent for a moment as Naruto stopped rapping his claws against the table, but soon after there came a noise from the opposite side of the room, like someone or something clearing their throat.

"I was wondering when they would capture you, boy... and look at that! My soldiers managed to locate you in such a short amount of time. I'll have to give them a little reward for all their hard work..." came a voice from the head of the table.

"I've got it! Now, I'll only make the guards who captured you pray to me eighteen times a day! They have proven their worth, and as a reward, my divine image is now slightly closer to their comprehension!" Naruto heard an arrogant laughter come from the head.

"And then... there's you boy. The one Adjuchas who had caused me much humiliation and rage after your little episode in the arena. You should count yourself lucky as well. Under normal circumstances, I would've sent you out to the slave's camp for you to be tortured and work for the rest of your miserable life. But no, you have caused my greatest tradition such a humiliation that you need to be dealt with in a more _special _way. . ."

The massive head chair turned, and Naruto watched stonily as Baraggan came into view, a skeletal grin upon his face.

Naruto sneered.

"Your arena wasn't exactly the most secure thing in the world. Any moron could've broken out of it..." lied Naruto, remembering just how difficult it was and how lucky he had been to break out.

Baraggan never lost his grin.

"Tell me something, boy, do you know what this palace is made out of?" asked Baraggan.

The random question took Naruto for surprise, and when he shook his head, Baraggan grinned wider.

"You seem to think that's it made of marble, but that's certainly not the case. You see, the parts of this palace other than the sand is made up of one thing..."

". . . Hollow bones. . ."

Naruto's eyes widened.

"You get it now. Every portion of this palace is made from the bony remains of all my slaves, enemies, and armies that I have captured. I like to keep my enemies close to me, see, and so I have grafted all of them into my living space so I remember all the crimes that have been done against my godliness."

Naruto laughed.

"You're a rotten king..." he repeated.

Baraggan leaned forward slightly.

"You have no right to say that after what you pulled in the arena. All you did was be exceedingly cruel to my vassals. And let's not forget that ridiculous dream of yours." he shot back, trying to get an edge on Naruto.

"I remember you telling me it when you were here grovelling with that group of Hollows. That was the reason you wanted to join my army, because you thought that if you were a part of it, you'd have a better chance of destroying the Shinigami. But now... all of your comrades are dead, and you sit before me captured, ready to face your death. Tell me, how do you plan on achieving that goal now?"

Baraggan expected a negative reaction, anger most likely, but was very surprised to see Naruto fold his hands across the table pensively, smiling slightly as he did. His breathing slowed, and Baraggan's smile fell from his skeletal face.

Naruto tapped the table several times with his sharp claws, creating a quiet musical beat with his fingers. He leaned back in his chair, looking at the guards in front of him, as well as noticing several behind them outside in the hall.

He sighed, and finally spoke.

"It means nothing. So what if my "comrades" are all dead. They were weak, falling under the hypnotic spell of Fuermos. I could never truly call those Hollows my comrades. And Fuermos himself, well... he betrayed me shortly after we left the arena, so he ceased being my comrade the second he attacked me from behind."

"As for my dream..." Naruto faltered for a second, before it said it with renewed confidence.

"You won't stop it! I'll escape from this place, and do it alone if I have to! The Shinigami and Konoha **will** be destroyed, no matter what the cost!"

Baraggan rose to his feet, sarcastic laughter bursting forth from his lungs.

"Like you'd be able to do it alone! There are many Hollows out there who resent the Shinigami, and dedicate their whole lives to seeing them destroyed. But your dream is the most ludicrous thing I've ever heard in my long existence..."

The God-King pointed at Naruto.

"Listen, this Konoha place, do you really believe you'll be able to destroy it alone? Even if you became a Vasto Lorde, that wouldn't happen. There's at least one Shinigami guarding every major human town in existence, and even if you're able to kill that one, Seireitei will be on your ass with backup before you're able to destroy it fully. The only way you'd be able to destroy it is if you're a king, and you use your military power to sweep the place in a matter of minutes..."

Naruto was about to say something, but Baraggan cut him off.

"And what's more, there have been kings that wanted to do something similar to that. Ones that want to rule Hueco Mundo, and then launch their armies on Soul Society. But... their plans never get past the first step. Do you know why?" asked Baraggan rhetorically.

"No..." said Naruto warily.

"It's because they get to wrapped up in their own greed! They become obsessed with taking more and more territory here in Hueco Mundo, that the fools never even launch their planned invasion of Soul Society before they get taken down!"

"So what!? I won't be like them!" roared Naruto.

Baraggan shook his head.

"You're a fool to not realize it beforehand. You ant! I'll show you what happens to dreamers within Hueco Mundo!"

With that statement, Baraggan reached inside his robe, and pulled out a long, thin yet sharp battleaxe that the king had been hiding before.

"Gran Caida... This will be your executioner's blade, and it's one that had rid the world of many lofty dreamers such as yourself. I won't even need my Respira for an Adjuchas like you..."

Naruto rose to his feet quick as a flash, readying himself for a fight.

"_I wonder if I can get my Curvas off on him. Or maybe I can use another reiatsu-based attack to get him on defense. Either way, this isn't going to be an easy fight..."_

Baraggan pointed his axe to ground, preparing to initiate the fight.

"Hmm. . . " Baraggan grunted as he used Sonido.

"_He's fast... _" he thought as he looked over to his left and saw Baraggan flash into existence.

Baraggan reared back severely, thrusting his axe out to the side in preparation for an attack.

"_C-Can't block... _" Naruto thought desperately.

The king delivered with the axe, barreling it through Naruto's midsection and giving the young Hollow a nasty slash. Naruto gurgled up blood, and attempted to retaliate, but Baraggan wouldn't give him the chance.

Using his pointed boot, Baraggan sharply kicked Naruto back into the left side of the wall, leaving an enormous crater with Naruto hunched over in the middle of it. Little pieces of wall crumbled over Naruto's head, adding more injuries to his already injured body.

He heard the rough pitter-patter of Baraggan's boot, and through blurry vision, vaguely saw the king approaching him. He hoisted himself to his feet, though he was struggling and was barely able to move from that point on.

"Look at that. You have such big dreams, yet you are so weak. Someone such as you could never hope to destroy the Shinigami. You're just a normal Adjuchas; destined to be eventually eaten, and not one who will evolve into Vasto Lorde status..."

"I-I'm g-going to b-become a K-King. I-I will a-achieve my d-dream, and also m-make a k-kingdom... f-far g-greater than y-y-yours could e-ever h-hope to be..." he wheezed, and although he was beaten and stuttering, he said the statement with pride, and with absolute certainty in his success.

Baraggan made a breathing noise, and the two were silent for a moment, until Baraggan raised his foot and roughly kicked Naruto straight in the head with it. Naruto cried out in extreme pain, before hitting his head against the wall and falling unconscious.

Baraggan swung back his axe again...

_Bang!_

The Hollow king stepped away from his axe, which was embedded in the marble directly above Naruto's head. The cogs were turning inside the old Hollow's head, thinking of Naruto's previous words and the meaning behind them.

He said he was going to be a King, with a kingdom far greater than his own. And, he will achieve his dream that way. But, the real kicker was the way that this young Hollow seemed to be challenging him.

His guards were rushing up to him, questioning why he wasn't killing the little fox Hollow, and also proposing to do it themselves.

"Quiet, you ants! I'm thinking!" he roared, and the two Hollows stood as still as a statue, their postures shaking and their faces sweating. One of them was slightly relaxed, so he was slapped into shape by his partner.

Baraggan forgot the humiliation this fox had wrought on him in the arena, and focused only on what he had said earlier. If this kid became a king, imagine the threat he might pose to his kingdom. That, in essence, was a good thing to Baraggan. The other rulers around Hueco Mundo had been surprisingly reserved lately, and his kingdom hasn't participated in a battle in almost forty years.

"God's mercy will let you go free this time, fox. Just _try_ to create a kingdom as good as mine, and we'll see how far you get in this little game. I'll accept that challenge, and if you somehow do manage to create your own kingdom, then I will personally crush it right then and there. In a glorious battle of death, destruction, and depravity. My status as a God will increase yet again, as will my territory due to dreaming fools like yourself." Baraggan whispered to the unconscious Naruto, so only he was able to hear it.

"Hey, you ants over there!" he spoke up to his guards. "This little piece of trash isn't worth killing. Carry him outside the palace and throw him in the sand like the garbage that he is. But, don't kill him, understand? I want him to live every day of his life knowing that he was shown mercy by God." Baraggan ordered.

The guards saluted forcefully at exactly the same time, walking over to the crater and none too gently hoisted the unconscious Naruto into the air. The two waddled out of the room with their cargo, trying to mentally prepare for the long journey to the gate that awaited them.

Baraggan grinned sinisterly as they left.

"I'll meet you again on the top of the world, kid. That is the exact time when you will die..."

* * *

It took the two guards nearly two days to reach the front gate of Las Noches. And that was with their quicker than human speed. Even the foyer near the main gate took almost an hour to traverse, but after that, the landscape gave way from the strange architecture to quartz trees.

As soon as that happened, the two guards swung the unconscious, wounded body of Naruto, and tossed him into the sand outside of Las Noches. He landed sprawled out on the ground next to a tree, his arms and legs spreading far apart from each other.

The two guards wiped their hands clean, as if they were trying to rid themselves of Naruto's presence. One of them, a more intelligent looking Hollow, spoke to the unconscious Hollow.

"You have been saved by the mercy of God, little Hollow. Don't say it was luck that got you out of this alive. You will have to spend the rest of your life dwelling on the fact that you are now indebted to his Highness."

The less intelligent Hollow jeered, offering to take his own barb at Naruto.

"An' don't expecht ta be given mercy twice. If we eva' see yo ugly mug 'round here again, now even 'Is Highness's grace will save ya that time. Keep tat inn mind."

The two Hollows laughed uproariously one last time, before turning to head back into Las Noches.

Naruto was left alone in the sand, friendless, wounded, and trapped in a cold, cruel world...

* * *

Woot! Chapter done!

We've got another short one this time around, though this Chapter officially wraps up the Las Noches arc. Now, we can move on to bigger and better things (cheering).

In case you haven't visited my profile, you won't know that I have now added a new feature to it. Say hello to the stories segment! (Applause). In this wonderful section, I will now be posting the next update dates for all of my stories!

However, they're not perfect, as I always set the date before I write the story. Because of that, I always give myself two or three update dates ahead of time to make up for this. Keep in mind that I could update during any one of those dates.

**Translations and Other Features**

Gran Caida: Great Fall

Goodbye,

**_Alban55_**


	13. La Ley Suprema

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to another chapter of **Amenaza**. We have a very special chapter today, because now it's time to begin a new arc! We'll be featuring some old faces from this point on, so I urge you to stick around. And please review!

**marc**: It does seems that Naruto has gone through a lot of failures lately, and I've been well aware that that was going to happen for several chapters now. He's going to start kicking ass from now on in some circles, but it's probably gonna be different than what you want.

**ijpowers92**: I've got all of that planned out, so don't worry. And actually, you should have your answers to those questions within the next few chapters.

**Slayer End**: Eh, I guess the thought just never occurred to me. And by the way, you do get a cookie.

**Lednacek**: It's still true, but I don't think Naruto would have time to stop and enjoy a meal when he's being pursued.

**swiftrabbit**: Well, since Baraggan always had Gran Caida in his Resurrección, I just assumed that he always had it as a Hollow.

* * *

Chapter 13: La Ley Suprema

In life, if you asked Hatake Kakashi what he thought the afterlife was, Soul Society would be the furthest answer from his mind. The silver-haired man never really thought about what the afterlife was before, but as soon as he was on the ground dying, he was forced to think about what would happen after he passed on.

He was _not _expecting a young man in a black robe, barely seventeen years old, to appear before his spirit and use a sword to send him to the afterlife. What was his name again... Masaru?

Whatever the case, that Shinigami kid had sent him to Soul Society, which turned out to be nothing like the paradise written down in all the religious texts. The man had spent little time in Rukongai though, as he quickly figured out that he become hungry, a trait that should not exist within the Soul Society. A local Shinigami visiting his home district explained to him that hunger was a sign of a strong reiatsu, and that those who possessed it had the potential to become a Shinigami.

The Seireitei opened up a whole new world for the former ninja. The brief crash course given to him by Masaru was no where near enough to give him a broad understanding of the world, but as he applied to enroll in the Shinigami academy, that all changed. He finished up the Shinigami academy in two years, being a natural genius to this field of work just like when he was alive. He learned many different things, all about the Hollows, the swords of the Shinigami that were called Zanpakutou, and of Soul Society itself.

He was entered into the always prestigious Gotei 13 immediately after he graduated, into the 5th Division. It was fitting of course, Shinigami in the 5th Division were always known for their use in Kidou, and Kakashi had taken to Kidou like he had to Ninjutsu.

He got his first taste of a Hollow soon after, and quite frankly it had disgusted him. Those beasts used everything at their disposal to get their food, and Kakashi was left with a nasty scar as a reminder of his first battle in the afterlife.

He unlocked his Shikai in record time, and because of that, rose straight up to the 8th Seat of his Division within six months of being a part of the Gotei 13. Being a seated officer was a whole new experience for him, as now he had the chance to interact with the higher ranks whom he had never interacted with before. And one of those individuals... came as a great shock to him.

_Flashback..._

_"Kakashi?" questioned a voice, its tone sounding slightly surprised._

_It was Kakashi's first day of being the 8th Seat, and he already had to deal with more responsibilities and duties. He was on his way back from the 5th Division's office, where he had just finished up organizing documents that the Captain had assigned him to._

_Kakashi was confused at the sudden voice, and as he turned around to address its owner, his breath hitched in his throat, and he struggled to form a coherent sentence to say to this particular individual._

_Even standing in the same Shinigami robes as everyone else, the shock of spiky blonde hair instantly gave this man away. Namikaze Minato... the Fourth Hokage of Konohagakure... had become a Shinigami. His gaze mirrored Kakashi's shocked glance, though there was a little bit of happiness in it._

_"S-Sensei. . ." Kakashi stuttered. The silver-haired man's emotions were a whirlwind of change. Ever since his death, he had earnestly hoped that his old comrades and dead loved ones would be somewhere in Soul Society, and he had hoped to reunite with at least one of them at all costs. But... due to the vast expanse of Soul Society, he didn't believe that he would ever run into one this soon, or that there would be any that would have become Shinigami._

_Kakashi's breathing quickened, and it increased even more when Minato his old student into a one-armed hug, signifying that he was indeed real._

_"S-Sensei, you're a Shinigami as well?" he asked. He returned the hug with his own, cementing the bond that the two men once had. _

_Minato released Kakashi, smiled at him from arm's length away._

_"Yeah, been here ever since I died nineteen years. The Shinigami saw great potential in me, and I completed my time in the academy in just one year. I've been the 3rd Seat in this division for the past five years. I've never been so thrilled to be working as a seated officer for this division. But... enough about me, I'll have to tell the others that you're a Shinigami too."_

_Kakashi held his hands up in front of him, in a representative gesture that this was too much for him to take at one time._

_"Wait, there are others from Konoha here?"_

_Minato laughed._

_"Oh yeah. Everyone's here! Tsunade, Jiraiya-sensei, the Old Man, Rin. We're all a tightly knit group here in the Seireitei. I figured that you would become a Shinigami as well, and Obito and Rin have been patiently been waiting for your arrival in Soul Society."_

_End Flashback..._

Kakashi smiled as he remember that day, as it had been one of the happiest moments in his life. His old comrades, all Shinigami, and fairly talented ones at that. Immediately after they had finished their work that day, Minato had immediately taken him to see the rest of his comrades in life, and he was pleasantly surprised to see that there were quite a few of them. His old sensei explained to him that because they were former shinobi, and had at least some experience when using a type of spiritual energy, that they were much more likely to become Shinigami than a normal human.

To his fear however, none of his younger comrades were present in the group. That meant one of two things, either that they were still alive, which is what he hoped, or that they were killed along with Konoha's fall, and they had just never reunited with them.

He had made his concerns known to his old sensei, but the man just laughed it off. Kakashi sighed, he was confident that his son was still alive, maybe even leading Konoha as the next Hokage. He didn't know, none of them haven't been back to Konoha in about a year, even though they knew it was back on its feet again. He had re-introduced him to all the comrades he hadn't seen in years, and how they were all faring since their deaths.

His old teammate Rin was there, and she was first person he visited. She died at the tender age of eighteen, but despite having a relatively short period of time under her belt landed at the 4th Seat of the 3rd Division.

Two of the three Sannin were here as well, and thankfully it was the two that were actually decent (sometimes) people. Jiraiya finished the academy in two years, and was just recently promoted to the 7th Seat of the 9th Division. Tsunade was well noted for her prowess in the medical field, and was drafted as the 6th Seat in the 4th Division.

The Sandaime was placed in the most prestigious Division of all, and quickly fell under Yamamoto's favor to become the 4th Seat in the 1st Division.

Lastly, there was Uzumaki Kushina, who formed probably the best husband and wife team in all of Seireitei. She rose to the 3rd Seat in the 3rd Division, being of the same rank as her husband.

Kakashi smiled, times were good. He was supposed to meet up with all his comrades again soon, as they had formed their own Shinigami association, but first he was supposed to meet his sensei professionally right now.

He opened the sliding door to the 5th Division's barracks, knowing that this was where Sensei was supposed to meet him. Kakashi suppressed a laugh as he entered. Minato was sitting at a desk with a giant stack of papers in front of him and an annoyed look on his face. Even in death, it seemed that a Hokage could never defeat his sworn enemy, paperwork.

Minato's face brightened when he heard Kakashi enter the room, eager to get away from all the paperwork. Kakashi greeted him warmly, like he did on a regular basis, and Minato stood up from his chair to address him.

"Good afternoon, Sensei..."

"Good afternoon to you as well, Kakashi. I have good news for you. Hirako-fukutaichou has presented _that _to the Central 46, and we both have an appointment with them that he's personally going to accompany us to." Minato said, a wide, giddy grin showing itself on his face.

Kakashi's eyes widened substantially, before he smiled his patented eye-smile.

"They've really considered it! I knew the Captain would never let us down! If we can get the Central 46 to agree to this, imagine what good will be done in the future. This could mean a turning point for both the human world and the Seireitei!" Kakashi exclaimed.

Minato fluidly agreed with him, but his face took on a more serious glance.

"The appointment is tomorrow afternoon at 4 o'clock. We need to be dressed in our finest robes, and give a speech so great that they'll be unable to refuse. We only have one shot at this Kakashi; the Central 46 won't accept the same thing twice."

Kakashi nodded, his old professional instincts rapidly kicking in.

"Hirako-fukutaichou will be alerted of the time they want us there via Hell Butterfly. We must be in the vicinity so that he may find us." said Minato, as he glanced at two unranked Shinigami pass him by, likely being done with work for the day.

Kakashi left the barracks that day nervous, pleading for the Central 46 to open their hearts and accept their new proposal.

* * *

Hirako Shinji was a young Shinigami, who was never known to be one who listened to authority. That being said, even he couldn't deny that the Central 46 was the supreme law of the land. If there was anything to be done in Soul Society, it was most likely the work of that infallible court system.

So, when those two subordinates of his brought to him that crazy proposal of theirs, Shinji knew that the only way that was ever going to pass was if the Central 46 took action on it. Even the Sou-Taichou couldn't pass a ruling like that.

He had to admit though, it wasn't a bad idea. It would be a shame for it not to pass, in order to ensure future members of the Gotei 13.

But... Shinji knew it wouldn't be that easy. The Central 46 was made up of stubborn old fools, proud of the stagnant old ways of the Seireitei, and unwilling to listen to anything that might change those things. People often said the Central 46 was judicial, but Shinji didn't see that honestly.

Once a person is accused of a crime, the Central 46 judges them with such bias and harshness that there has never been a not-guilty ruling in the history of the entire establishment. Thank God they weren't that harsh when it came to passing a law. Which, by the way, the Central 46 shouldn't even be doing in the first place, considering that they're not supposed to be a legislative body.

But... if that's the way it had to be, then so be it. 2 o'clock... the Hell Butterfly signaling their summons should've been here by now. Shinji walked over to his desk and sat down quietly. He wished he could be listening to some of that fancy new music that was popular in the real world right now.

"What's the name of that new music again... I think it's called Baroque or something..." muttered Shinji absentmindedly. He rubbed the back of his head, and didn't even notice the Hell Butterfly fly right into his window.

He whooped and fell out of his chair violently, when he opened his eyes and the saw the pitch-black butterfly inches away from his face. The Vice-Captain groaned forcefully, as he struggled to his feet to catch the flying insect.

"_Blah, Blah, Blah_" thought Shinji, as the Hell Butterfly broadcasting their appointment, and how they should be honored to be in the Central 46's presence.

He didn't have to go far to find Minato and Kakashi, as they already anticipated this, and were already waiting for the news in the next room over, waiting to meet the supreme law of the land.

* * *

The underground compound of the Central 46 highly emphasized the near paranoid approach the system had for restriction. The top portion of the building was above ground, surrounded by a large moat with only one key entrance into the compound. But, the surfaced portion held next to nothing than the foyer. The judges and wise men even live underground, going to work everyday at their assembly hall. It's unknown when the last time they saw the light of day was.

Shinji had picked up the two former shinobi, guiding them through the gates of the restricted area into the main living quarters of the judges. Even he was nervous, as it was usually the Captains who interacted with the Central 46, and here he was, a Vice-Captain, taking over all the work.

Shinji lead the charge into the assembly, Vice-Captain's badge gleaming proudly across his right arm to be displayed to anyone who crossed his path. He wasn't the only one who dressed for the occasion. Both Minato and Kakashi had dressed in their finest uniforms, and had managed to do something about their unruly hair. Kakashi also lost the face mask, and it was the first time Shinji had ever seen his face.

The light dimmed as the three made their way underground, and when they finally entered the main assembly hall, they saw the 46 silhouettes vastly veiled by darkness. It was as if they were unknown deities sent to Earth to judge, and could never reveal their faces to anyone as it would be too much for mortals to handle.

"Sit..." boomed a voice from the highest portion of the hall, a vast echo making it seem much more intimidating than it actually was.

The three Shinigami obeyed respectfully, bowing to their superiors as they took a seat at the benches on the lowest level of the floor. The 46 men and women surrounded them from all sides, making it feel like they were being judged instead of proposing a law.

"_This was it_," thought Kakashi. These people hold supreme power over all of Soul Society. This one-branch, oligarchical system was the only way to get something passed as a law. This political entity could make or break laws, without anything to balance out its power.

There came a shuffling of papers directly ahead of the trio, where the six wise men had taken proceeding over the entire appointment.

"We've all read the proposal for this law, but I think you should explain in full detail why you believe that we should pass this. What you're suggesting could cost quite a lot of manpower to keep going, in addition to all the advanced technology cost."

Minato was fully prepared for something like that to happen, giving a speech despite the paper explaining the entire proposal. He stood up from his seat, taking more initiative to talk than Kakashi.

"The reasoning behind it is simple. You may not know this, but Kakashi and myself are from that village that is mentioned in the paper. And, we're not the only ones who came from there. Ever since our continent has been advancing, more and more former shinobi have been admitted into the Shinigami ranks..."

Minato paused in his speech for a moment, and he heard some slight murmuring coming from the group of judges.

"What's your point?" asked the same wise man who spoke to them before.

"I'm inclined to believe that former shinobi are much more inclined to have suitable Reiryoku to become Shinigami than normal humans. If you don't believe me, everyone of us in our association have become seated officers in the span of about twenty years."

"However... ever since the Hollows have discovered our little continent, due to our superior genetics, our village will become much more likely to become subject to Hollow attack. We've managed to avoid this before because of our relative anonymity, but I've recently heard of a Hollow attack three years ago that killed twelve humans and two Shinigami."

More murmuring.

"What we're proposing is more protection for the village of Konohagakure no Sato. Despite our deaths, the Will of Fire still burns within us strong, and we will not allow our beloved village to be destroyed at the hands of Hollows. We request that more Shinigami be sent on standby to the village, and protect it at all costs to ensure it's survival and future members of the Gotei 13..."

"You do realize... that you want us to give unequal treatment to the humans, and place Shinigami in your village when they could be off somewhere else protecting another city or village."

This sentence threw the three Shinigami for a slight loop. They didn't expect the Central 46 to say something like that, but it could be easily remedied.

"We're not that selfish! We want our village to be safe, but we don't want to deprive other people of protection if it means that our village will be safe. If we didn't know that more Shinigami would be coming out of Konoha, we wouldn't have proposed this idea in the first place!" Minato raised his voice.

There came a slight humming noise from the desks of the judges.

"Hmm, it what you say is true, then that single soul killed by a Hollow could have been a Captain. But... we're not going to pass this law just yet. We'll need firm proof on your theory before we take action on this. You must show us that there really is a higher chance of becoming a Shinigami if one was a shinobi in life. Unfortunately, ever since a certain _incident_, we cannot use our Scientific Institute for this. We will send word to the 4th Division via Hell Butterfly to run some tests on your Association..."

A firm bubble of happiness rose in Minato and Kakashi's stomachs, and both smiled brightly at the judges. Shinji on the other hand, just sat there quietly at the desk, casually watching the proceeding without making any judgement on it.

But... as soon as the court made that ruling, the Vice-Captain stood up from the desk, and with a quick bow to his superiors, walked out the door without a second thought.

* * *

If there was one person Minato thought would be waiting for him outside the Central 46 compound, it would have to be his wife, Uzumaki Kushina. So, even though he half-expected her to be sitting on the side of the wall patiently, he still embraced her warmly as if he would have never thought of that at all.

Since the two had died together, the couple was fortunate enough to receive their Konsou at the same time, as well as live their afterlife together. But. ... the days that went by missing their son grow up were painful indeed. Kushina herself never seemed to get over that they would likely be separated forever, and when Minato told her of his theory, her face brightened like he had never seen before, knowing that when Naruto became a Shinigami they would finally be reunited.

Minato smiled softly at that. That's right, _when _he got here. His son would come to Soul Society eventually, and when he did, both he and Kushina had faith that he would be the finest Shinigami they had ever seen.

"Kushina!" the blonde-haired man cried as he hugged her warmly. Even in death, Uzumaki Kushina looked as if she had barely changed. She was clad in the standard black Shinigami attire that everyone wore, though unlike many others, looked as if she hadn't aged a day since her death. Her ridiculous long red hair still went all the way past her knees, and she left it long and visible, even though she tied it into a super-long ponytail before combat.

The woman laughed, knowing that such a warm embrace meant good news. Before Minato released her, she grabbed his collar, and pulled the surprised Minato in for a long, chaste kiss. Minato didn't fight back, suddenly preferring the behavior.

"So... tell me the good news," she said eagerly when the married couple finally pulled away from each other. Minato grinned at her casually.

"The Central 46 has opened up to our proposal far easier than we expected. The only thing we have to do is prove that former shinobi have a greater reiryoku than normal people. They've sent a Hell Butterfly out to the 4th Division to run some tests on the members of our Association."

Kushina's smile dampened slightly at those words, but she couldn't deny that things were invariably working in their favor.

"The others are waiting to hear about this big proposal that you and Kakashi have covered up. You promised them that you'd tell them as soon as you were done with your meeting. Are you going to tell them that they have to go through a bunch of medical tests as well..." she said, some sternness entering her voice.

Minato waved his hands in front of his face.

"Don't worry, I'll tell them. I wanted this to be a surprise, but somehow I think that we'll all going to be doing medical testing will put a damper on that."

Kushina glared at him playfully.

"What was your first clue?" she asked sarcastically.

* * *

Minato thought the group took the news surprisingly well...

...before they all went and beat the shit out of him for putting medical tests on them.

But, nevertheless they complied to it, as the proposal was too sweet of a deal for them to pass up. Ever since they had died, every single one of them had to put up with thinking whether or not the village was safe. It was an aggravating experience, to say the least, but now they wouldn't have to put up with that anymore.

Of course... now here they were outside in the 4th Division's waiting room, all of them sending a death glare over in his direction. Kushina was the only one to not finish being tested, and all the others had marks to prove that they were already done.

Minato laughed nervously, which in turn caused the atmosphere to become even more tense. The man got up out of his chair, before walking away from the tense atmosphere to go watch the 4th Division Shinigami finish up their work.

He touched a portion of his arm, feeling a slight stinging course through it. That was where the doctors had taken a reiatsu sample for testing, but it wasn't so simple to figure out whether they were genetically superior.

He heard a slight whirring of an operation taking place, and Minato hoped it wasn't coming from his beloved wife's room. But, to his relief, the doctor was finishing up in her room. The medical specialist had just inserted an otoscope into his wife's right ear just as he had entered the room.

"Looks all clear..." muttered the doctor as he looked down Kushina's ear canal. Minato didn't know whether he was talking about the proposal or his wife's ear canal. But, whatever the case, the doctor always finished off with a small checkup, meaning that Kushina was almost good to go.

The medical Shinigami took off his gloves once he finished with a few more things, and then turned to address Minato.

"You're the one who proposed that plan, aren't you 3rd Seat Namikaze?" he asked rhetorically.

"Well, right now it looks like you people _do _have a disposition to become Shinigami, but we'll have to run a few tests on your reiryoku and blood to prove it. We'll send the results to the Central 46 in about a week's time... so you should hear from them soon." the doctor explained.

Both Minato and Kushina smiled brightly.

"Thank you! Thank you so much!" thanked Minato heartily.

The doctor laughed slightly at their attitudes.

"No, no, thank you! For ensuring future members of the Gotei 13. Your association deserves the high praise it gets from the higher-ups, 3rd Seat Namikaze. You have some fine Shinigami in there, that's for sure..."

Both Minato and Kushina left the doctor's office that day feeling brisker and happier than they had in years.

* * *

Six days later, the wise men of the Central 46 observed the results of the testing as soon as they were sent by the 4th Division. In front of them were two sets of papers. One was the original rough-draft proposal of the law that was sent in by those at the 5th Division.

The second was the final drafted law that the Central 46 spent crafting, the only necessary now was its seal of approval. Minato and Kakashi were called back to their headquarters to watch them give their final decision on the matter.

The leading wise man looked over the results down to every last detail, studying the normal Shinigami's reiryoku sample versus the Konoha Shinigami's reiryoku sample. The 4th Division's report lasted around five pages, and they were all being passed around the table of the six wise men.

The other five wise men looked at their head, who was cautiously scanning the last page with a thoughtful expression on his face. The tension in the air was stifling to the former Konoha ninja down below, and their stomachs contracted as the six wise men began whispering to each other in a group.

The proposal of course had a hefty price, Minato realized that as he wrote it. They didn't want to sound too important, but both he and Kakashi requested that a Captain be sent to Soul Society in case of an incredibly strong Hollow.

After a moment of silence, where even the forty judges had turned to stare at them, the group finally broke away from each other, the head wise man clearing his throat and grabbing one of the two stamps that sealed the fate of a law.

"By the power vested in me by all of the Seireitei, and by the power vested in me by all of the forty judges and six wise men that sit here today, the Supreme Authority of Soul Society, the Central 46, hereby declares this law approved."

To cement his point, the head wise man brought down the stamp on the document, stamping an enormous, red kanji for "Approved" all over the face of the paper.

Minato felt a blossom of happiness emerge inside his stomach, before he laughed disbelievingly. He sat up from his chair and went over to clap Kakashi across the back, who seemed to be in as big a daze as he was.

The 46 members of the court watched them celebrate with stoic faces, deciding not to impede on their moment of happiness.

The village of Konohagakure was now fully underneath the protection of the Gotei 13...

* * *

It took a little while for Naruto to finally rise from unconsciousness back into the real world. Somehow, he hadn't gotten attacked by a passing Hollow on the lookout for a meal, and he supposed that itself was a godsend.

The wounded Hollow rose to his feet, feeling slightly delirious and bloated. If said Hollow did in fact come by here, then he'd be in no shape to fight them off unless they were of a weak kind of Hollow.

Still... Naruto wondered just how he survived his encounter with Baraggan. He didn't know much about the old king, but he knew enough about him to realize that Baraggan wasn't one to take mercy on anyone.

Naruto dizzily looked back at the great palace one last time. There was no way he was going back in there now... at least before he gained the power necessary to challenge Baraggan.

Thinking back, his original goal for coming to Las Noches was that he wanted to gain the capability necessary to take on the Shinigami. But now he realized he was being nothing but a naive fool.

His little excursion had cost him three years of his life, which he could've easily spent destroying Konoha. And... thinking about it now, he had really lost sight of his dream over the past few years. Maybe it was on account of being a Hollow, and needing to fulfill his natural needs?

Naruto didn't know, but he realized now he didn't need an army to take down Konoha. There were likely Shinigami stationed there, but he likely take them now that he was an Adjuchas. Before that, they had seemed so strong that he had thought he would need help defeating, but he realized that wasn't true. He had just been a fledgeling Hollow then, and he had gained so much strength since then.

He _would _go back to Konoha soon, he would defeat whatever Shinigami was stationed there, and destroy Konoha now when he couldn't before. He would no longer have to escape to here through a Garganta.

But first, he needed to recuperate from his wounds, and find a suitable shelter to hide from Hueco Mundo's many predators. He cursed himself right now for not having an advanced Hollow's regeneration, but he figured he would develop that later on.

The Shinigami could wait. Baraggan could wait. His own kingdom could wait. Now was the time to focus on Konoha, his original goal.

Naruto limped off into the darkness of Hueco Mundo, thoroughly set on succeeding.

* * *

Chapter 13 is done! With a little exposition on the next arc!

We also saw some long-awaiting characters that I'm sure many of you have been dying to see appear since the beginning!

Naruto's focused on his original goal again, but the plot thickens with Soul Society's laws. You'll see what happens in the next couple chapter of Amenaza.

Please review and tell me what you think.

**_See ya,_**

**_Alban55_**


	14. Valicav

Mark20020:

**Yes, eventually.**

**SpeeDemon**: Well, I made Shinji mention the Baroque style of music. The Baroque period lasted from around 1600 to 1750 A.D, so he hasn't been promoted to Captain yet.

**Itachi1275**: If you think about things that way, this story shouldn't even be possible as the Bleach Shinigami would be replaced by the Naruto one.

**LuvDarkHarry**: Naruto already killed Sasuke back in Chapter 2. (And ate his soul).

**Rockhard034: **Yes, they did just disappear. Remember that the inner world that every soul has breaks down when changing into a Hollow. Since Naruto had another mindscape, his Shinigami essence was able to take refuge there.

Since Naruto became an Adjuchas, Naruto has been capable of manipulating reiatsu and reiryoku to a degree.

**GreenonBlack**: I don't remember anything like that being stated in canon.

**Itachi**: I don't see what good that would do him, since Naruto already shat all over the Sharingan back in Chapter 2 when he was a weak-ass Hollow.

Whew, I lot of questions this time around, so without further ado, here's Chapter 14! Sorry it's late everyone, I forget that I was supposed to visit some relatives over the weekend, so I had no time to work on it.

* * *

Chapter 14: Valicav

The infinite expanse of Hueco Mundo was quiet, and not even a gentle breeze flowed through the merciless sands of the desert. The perpetual moon hung over the world, its light and glory acting as a guiding light. Naruto thought it looked as beautiful as ever, but maybe the delirium was making it seem that way.

Naruto's bones ached every time he so much as took a single step, and several times he had to lean on one of the quartz trees for support. Too much walking, and bile and blood would rise up in his throat, and he would wheeze so strongly that he looked like a medical patient taking his last breaths at a hospital...

But, there were no hospitals in Hueco Mundo, nothing more than vast, untamed wild. An injured Hollow could be wiped out in seconds, as the Hollows who lived here never gave a damn what their condition was like.

The white sand crunched beneath his feet, and Naruto was looking down at his legs. He noticed that the deep crimson armor that covered his entire person had changed to little more than a dull red. The bony material looked blotchy as well, as if he had bled underneath the armor.

He heard the roar of a distant Hollow, and noted that Hueco Mundo had an exceptionally sparse population today. Maybe it was because he was around Las Noches, a place that most Hollows tended to avoid. He wasn't out of the woods yet, as around a vast circumference of Las Noches there stood several outposts and underground bunkers, their marble pieces looking like little more than ruins left on the landscape, instead of districts separate from the main body of Las Noches.

The east side of Las Noches, where the Adjuchas had left, was fortunately filled with little more than run-down and abandoned outposts that had few sentries that were stationed there. The old stone bricks had fallen off their structures, and the marble of the bunker looked old and cracked.

As Naruto limped through the distant reaches of Las Noches, he continuously looked over his right shoulder, cautiously checking whether anyone was following him. To both his relief and disappointment, the following never occurred whenever he was around the vicinity of Las Noches.

A few weak Hollows had attacked him during his trek, but even in his injured state he was able to fend them off easily. Feeding on such weak Hollows at this point in his evolutionary lifestyle would grant him nothing.

He found a small cave in a series of rock beds, and being a small Hollow, the Adjuchas was able to squeeze into the shelter to avoid the strong wind and allow his injuries to heal. The cave was mostly out of view, so he was mostly safe from attacks by other Hollows.

He found the softest section of dirt in the cave, and curled up into to go to sleep, despite knowing that there was no need to other than to make his wounds heal faster. Listening to the wind move the sand always did calm him, and numb the aching pain that he was currently feeling. He just lied there for over an hour, listening to it rise and fall in intensity, and never even budging from that spot, before finally drifting off into a light sleep.

"Hey, look at this guys! There was a small Adjuchas who thought it would just be fine to sleep out here in the middle of Hueco Mundo! I don't think it knows the dangers of resting in this place..." came an obnoxious Hollow, its voice tinted with disbelieving glee.

"... Especially since _we're_ here..." it added arrogantly.

"This is our lucky break, then! The chances that we would ever get to eat someone like him is slim to none. Let's eat now, before he gets up! We could all take a huge step in our evolutionary line." came another voice, as eager and gleeful as the first.

"_Four Hollows... going by the stupid laughter of all of them..." _thought Naruto, who was easily roused from his sleep the instant they came within fifty feet of his cave.

"Let's eat, then. I'll deliver a fatal blow right to the mask, and then we can all dig in!" said the first voice.

The large, tan Hollow brought down its beefy, fat fist down directly where Naruto's head was. A cloud of dust and sand rose inside the cave, and the Hollows' happiness turned to confusion as all that was left after the dust cleared was a small crater where the tan Hollow's fist had impacted.

The first Hollow roared as he felt a heavy weight latch itself onto his back, pulling him downwards with a force that he couldn't compete with. He saw the fox Hollow, awake and moving like he had never been asleep, staring down at him manically as soon as he was moved into a position where he could see.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Uzumaki Naruto, and you would really be quite the rude ones if had come here intending to disturb my sleep. But... that would be beyond such fine Hollows such as yourselves... _wouldn't it?_" Naruto asked, his face twisted into a look of pure loathing.

The three Hollows that surrounded him did nothing, but the one that Naruto was holding hostage was nodding his head frantically.

"Well, that's just _dandy..._ knowing that you aren't the type of Hollows who would do such a thing..." He pushed harder on the Hollow, forcing it to grunt in pain.

"... But, it turns out I would have _so _much more respect for you if I hadn't known you to be _liars_..." Naruto hissed harshly, digging his sharp claws into the flesh of the captured Hollow.

"I find lying Hollows to be among the tastiest beings I can sample..." he lied, knowing that there were next to no difference in the taste. "And you would've lived much longer if you hadn't thought of attacking an Adjuchas. Asleep or not, that was one of the most idiotic moves you could pull."

The Hollow stammered for a reply, but Naruto narrowed his eyes accusingly. He raised one of his front paws, making sure to keep the other one grabbed onto the Hollow. The Hollow's pitiful life flashed before its eyes as it viewed the potent black claws propel towards him at a rate he wasn't very comfortable with.

It gurgled as the claws penetrated it's sturdy skin, and red life fluid poured from its jugular in torrents. Naruto had gone for a clean kill this time... but that didn't make the action any less agonizing to him.

The Hollow's companions stared dumbly as the spectacle unfolded, but one of them found his throat slit mere seconds after his friend has died, the fox Adjuchas appearing next to him as quick as a blur.

A pause, and then another thud as the corpse of the Hollow fell to the ground directly after the first one. The two remaining live Hollows were finally able to gather their composure, but as soon as they were prepared to launch an attack, Naruto had used his superior strength to send their heads flying clean off their body.

Amazingly, the two Hollows were still alive for a few seconds, their bodies falling limp to the ground, yet their heads attempting to roar in a gesture of pure horror. But, even in their last seconds of life, Naruto wouldn't let them have any reprieve, as immediately after he ripped off their heads with his claws, he began tearing into the Hollows' severed heads with his teeth.

Naruto enjoyed a quick meal after that, even going so far to mock his enemies after death and giggle obnoxiously as well.

The brief fight had left him in a happier mood, and as he looked into the endless night ahead of him he felt the powerful urge to explore. There was something odd dotted on the landscape far, far ahead of him, but he couldn't figure out what it was.

As he drew ever closer, his vision could make out more of what lay ahead of him. It looked like a giant hole from his perspective, but it wasn't until he actually reached the place that he figured out it was an enormous canyon.

And what a canyon it was. Absolutely gargantuan... putting even the Grand Canyon in the human world to shame. It took Naruto's breath away, and traces of his old self found their way into his eyes. He knew that he had to explore this canyon.

He looked down, seeing sharp rocks at the bottom of a steep, sharp and dangerous clifface. There were no apparent trails, footholds, or outlying rocks that could be used for leverage. Any fool who tried to tackle this beast would surely be in for a painful death at the bottom...

At least, any fool that was human.

Naruto stood on his hind legs and puffed out his chest, looking incredibly ridiculous with the drab background. He did a kooky, immature little dance, and recklessly leapt off the gorge without any hesitation.

He fell for a while, calmly humming to himself as it he _wasn't _falling several thousand feet. As he neared the wall, his hind legs shot out from behind him, and his powerful claws dug into the rock.

He saw a burrowing Hollow at the bottom out of the corner of his eye, but it never resurfaced again. He also saw a strange... thing? It almost looked like some kind of building, but it's ruined structures seemed to deny that as the case.

Naruto dropped onto the sand with a light grunt, and was able to get a closer look at the so-called building. It was red in color, and looked like a tall tower, or at least it would have if ninety percent of the building wasn't strewn all over the place. It looked like someone had taken an enormous blade and just slashed the tower in half, and then into even smaller segments.

Naruto was mystified by the thing, his curiosity getting the better of him yet again. He dragged his quadrupedal body across the sand, eyes fixated on nothing but the red building. He stubbed his toe on something, making him curse in pain and lose his focus.

Directly in front of the tower, there was a tan point rising above the landscape for about six inches. Naruto cautiously bent over and reached out his paw to touch the thing, rubbing his pads all over it. It was rough... and Naruto recognized the material as a type of stone brick, a stark contrast to the building that lay in front of him.

Naruto felt the rough surface for a few more seconds, before forcefully retracting his paw and digging it into the sand beneath the stone object. Naruto dug around at a phenomenal rate, his claws working in perfect tandem together.

Within a few minutes, Naruto had uncovered the entire thing. It hung underground at a lopsided angle, and it turned out that it laid level, it would be a completely flat surface.

"A wall..._" _Naruto muttered to himself.

The stone object was indeed once a part of a wall; there was only one layer of bricks, but many rows and columns that rose to a great height. He reached out to touch it again, rubbing his hands across a strange insignia that looked like ten uniform swirls.

A strange shadow entered Naruto's vision, and his instincts made him jerk around instantaneously, thoroughly prepared for any sort of fight.

The shadow seemed to be coming from the interior of the red tower, but Naruto wasn't able to make out what it was. He cautiously stepped up towards the tower, his nerves shot as he entered the inside. He sensed movement for a split-second, and he shot down the hallway of the tower as blinding speeds, intent on catching who was spying on him.

The tower seemed to lead him underground, and he would have found it odd that this place was a massive underground complex rather than a tower. The hallways became more and more dungeon-like, extinguished torches lining the walls and dead ends becoming more common.

He reached a winding set of stairs after running into about six dead ends, and he caught of glimpse of the shadow as he neared the end of the stairwell. It was rocking back and forth rhythmically, almost like it was luring the young Adjuchas.

But, the shadow disappeared as he reached the end of the hall, but he was finally capable of seeing its owner as he entered the chamber at the end of the staircase. It was a shrouded figure, dressed in a black cloak and stood about seven feet tall. But... the thing that Naruto noticed most was the fact that it stood upright.

"_A Vasto Lorde... _" Naruto assumed, and although it was likely the case, Naruto desperately hoped that he was wrong.

The Vasto Lorde didn't even need to turn around to notice Naruto's presence. Rather, he continued to sit there as if Naruto wasn't there, staring at the Hollow mask, and then eventually at the ruined walls and the sand floor.

Naruto stared dumbly as the Vasto Lorde finally got up, but ignored Naruto even if he tensed up for a fight. The powerful being took a few minutes to create a small hole big enough for the mask, before casually dropping it in and giving the dead Hollow a proper burial.

The Vasto Lorde sighed to himself.

"Well... don't just stand there with that retarded look on your face, kid..." he said, addressing Naruto for the first time.

Naruto snapped out of his reverie at that remark.

"Retarded? Who the fuck are you to say I'm retarded? You're a freaking Vasto Lorde, who does nothing more than sit in the basement of an abandoned tower staring at Hollow masks all day."

The Vasto Lorde ignored him, and to Naruto's frustration, was now staring at the ground again, his eyes half-lidded as if he were bored. Finally, he spoke.

"Yeah, you're right," he admitted.

The powerful Hollow finally took off his cloak, revealing his true appearance for the first time. His skin coloring was a stark, clammy grey, with hideous buboes and appendages sticking out from everywhere on his body. Six spikes were encircled around his collar, almost looking like a necklace of bones.

His mask was devilish, with an angular chin and curved horns coming out of the forehead of the white porcelain. His eyes were mustard yellow, much like every other Hollow in the world, yet they were sad and somber, though they were slanted with anger as well.

Ugly gray hairs were poking out of the back of his mask, and they came down to form long spikes down his back.

The Vasto Lorde glared at the weaker Hollow, and Naruto felt one of the most oppressive atmospheres he had ever experienced in his life. You could practically taste the bitterness that oozed off of the Vasto Lorde.

"This is _my _kingdom..." he hissed at Naruto, who responded to that declaration with more than a little confusion.

"Your... kingdom?" Naruto asked. He didn't like to just sit here and chitchat with the Hollow, but it was a miracle that he hadn't been attacked yet. Maybe he could prolong this long enough for him to escape.

The Vasto Lorde sauntered on up to Naruto, and tightly gripped his shoulder which prevented Naruto from escaping.

"_My _kingdom." he repeated, staring into Naruto's eyes. The Vasto Lorde released his grip after that, turning his back to Naruto.

"Your kingdom...?"

Naruto paused.

"This place is nothing more than a bunch of ruins now. Outside the tower, I saw this stone wall with a strange insignia on it. There are probably more of them underground, and you're telling me that this place is your kingdom?" Naruto asked.

The Vasto Lorde tensed even further.

"It _was _my kingdom..." he whispered, though Naruto still heard it easily.

A small snort of a chuckle came from Naruto, and it obvious that he was trying so hard not to laugh. On the inside, he wanted to do nothing more than burst into peals of laughter and insult and mock the Vasto Lorde for the loss of his kingdom. But, he knew that this Hollow was leagues ahead of him, and to laugh would be tantamount to suicide.

But the Vasto Lorde ignored that short little outburst. Naruto was lucky that he was a relatively patient Vasto Lorde.

"But, my kingdom was _destroyed_... by that bastard Baraggan. I thought the rough terrain and deep hole would offer a suitable terrain obstacle for a Hollow kingdom to exist at the bottom of this canyon, but apparently that isn't the case as Baraggan used his superior numbers to crush ours. I was the only one left alive, and I lament the loss of my kingdom every day... "

Naruto turned all serious for a moment.

"Does Baraggan enjoy destroying small kingdoms?" he asked.

The Vasto Lorde snorted at that.

"Enjoy it? He _lives _for it. If the son of a bitch goes for too long without sending his army on anyone, then he becomes cranky..." the Vasto Lorde said. Naruto looked confused, as if he were about to inquire how he knew this.

The Vasto Lorde sighed.

"I suppose I'll tell you my name, then. It's Valicav Almazin, but I highly doubt you've ever heard of me..." as if he just answered his own question, the Adjuchas in front of him shook his head.

"I was once best friend and champion of Baraggan, meaning that I was also second-in-command within Las Noches. But... as time went on, I began to see a severe problem with my leader's arrogance and ways. I was selfish... and I began to crave power... supreme power all for myself. It didn't help that I was sadistic and impulsive at the time. Eventually, I left Las Noches and Baraggan behind, and started my own kingdom at the bottom of this canyon, far away from Las Noches."

Naruto seemed shocked and angry about this revelation.

"About three years ago... I began to look for my successor. I saw you rise up from the underground Menos Forest when I was wandering Hueco Mundo. You and that bug Adjuchas were planning to go to Las Noches. You in particular... I saw a very likely candidate to be my successor... but of course there were others, but they're all dead now, and that's what I thought happened to you as well when you entered Las Noches and never came out."

"But... in the three years that you were trapped in Las Noches... everything changed. Still being the sadistic and brash Hollow that I was at the time, I foolishly decided that I had the necessary manpower to attack Las Noches. I lead my army up the canyon and to the palace, but we were all crushed before we could even reach Baraggan's throne room. After that incident, I had revealed myself to Baraggan, and his rage knew no bounds as he took advantage of our weakness to deal a devastating blow here on the homefront."

"I don't know why you're explaining all of this to me. In case you haven't noticed, I'm not exactly the _nicest _Hollow in the world, so if you're looking for sympathy you've come to the wrong place." Naruto said rudely.

Valicav allowed a ghost of a grin to come upon his face.

"It's true. I might just be an old Hollow that's begging for sympathy. There's no kingdom for you to take over anymore, and I'm not even sure you would want to do that in the first place," he said bitterly.

Naruto turned away from him.

"Well, you just happen to be in luck. I had a little run-in with the king of Las Noches, and now it's my goal to surpass his kingdom with my own. However... even if I do create my own kingdom, I wouldn't be your successor. I'm not going to have my spirit break like yours did, nor am I going to have my kingdom collapse. By having both of those things happen to you, you're just a pathetic old Vasto Lorde who isn't even deserving of my sympathy. You were better off as Baraggan's champion..."

Valicav stared at the boy with more than a little bit of resentment, to which Naruto ignored.

"Besides, I have a greater goal in mind that would be wasted on the likes of you. The destruction of Konohagakure no Sato, in the Elemental Countries, and the complete annihilation of the Shinigami race. _That_ is my true final goal, not some small backwater kingdom at the bottom of a canyon."

Naruto turned his back on the fallen king, finally having had enough of him, and ascending the stairs.

Valicav's mind went numb for a minute, before a sort of epiphany happened.

"_Konohagakure? This kid wants to destroy the Konohagakure? He can't be talking about another village; there's only one Konohagakure in the world..."_

"Wait, kid! You can't go destroy Konoha right now. Doing that is the same thing as suicide!" he yelled out to Naruto, who paused in his ascension to stare intensely at Valicav.

"What was that? Are you telling me that destroying Konoha is beyond my capabilities?" he roared in anger. Valicav had apparently hit a very sore spot for Naruto. It was basically telling the boy that he was too weak.

But the rage was short-lived, and faded to become suspicion.

"Come to think of it, how do _you _even know about Konoha in the first place. Anyone who isn't from the Elemental Countries should have no knowledge of it..." The two were silent for a moment.

"Who _are_ you?"

Valicav was avoiding Naruto's gaze, as if something nasty from his past had come back to haunt him.

"T-That doesn't matter." he said after a moment, making himself seem even more suspicious. "All I know is that the village of Konoha has recently come underneath the protection of the Shinigami. If you attack now, you'll have to be fighting a great amount of Shinigami all by yourself. They also have the ability to call Captains or Vice-Captains to the scene on a whim, and that's something that an Adjuchas like yourself can't fight." Valicav explained.

Naruto looked conflicted after hearing those words. Should he believe the old Hollow? Or was he just pulling stuff out of his ass to keep him here? That would explain all the stuttering and the obvious lying he was doing before.

"_Fuck _you..." Naruto said hotly, his voice raising to a squeak and a forced, overly happy grin on his face.

"Wha-" said Valicav.

"I said _fuck _you, asshole. I don't have to believe your bullshit. You're a former king, and that makes you a liar by default. You're telling me that Konoha gets all this special treatment for no reason? That's downright laughable. At best there will be a few low-ranked Shinigami stationed there, whom I can easily take out with no problem."

"You don't understand..." said Valicav stoically.

"No, I _do _understand Valicav. You're just trying to make me give up on my dream so you can build me up as your successor to stroke your own pathetic ego. Well, guess what old man, I'm going to go to Konoha _right now_, destroy it, and prove to you that I'm fully capable!" Naruto's voice cracked on the last sentence.

"I've been wanting to practice how to do this, anyway..." said Naruto, as he opened up the Garganta and stepped into the black void.

Valicav held out his hand.

"Wait, don't-"

"See ya, Valicav. Don't die before I get back. I want to prove to you my capabilities..." With a sinister laugh, the Garganta closed before Valicav could even react, leaving nothing but normal space where the void once was.

Valicav sat down on the sand in frustration, his body wavering.

"Stupid fool..."

* * *

The Garganta opened high above Konoha, where even the Konoha monument could be seen at a bird's eye view. The Hollow within immediately stepped out of the Garganta as soon as he saw the blue sky, eager to wreak some havoc on the denizens below.

He hovered in the air for a moment, looking down on the village from his standpoint. It looked so... peaceful, as if it wasn't even being affected by the war that was currently going on with Iwa.

Children played in the streets, vendors smiled and sold goods to their valued customers. Shinobi, genin or Kage alike were treated with full respect. But most importantly, not a single one of them was unaware of the monster in the skies, ready to slit their throats at a moment's notice.

Naruto stared down on the village with a hungry look in his eyes, like an evil deity preparing to rain down his judgement on the foolish mortals. He ran a paw across his mask, stroking the back of it's ears to the bottom of his chin.

"Well..." he sighed wistfully. "Let's get on with it then..."

* * *

And Chapter finished! It's a short one to be sure, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't review it! Please do that... I'll cry if you don't.

Once again, I'm sorry I was unable to update on the proposed time, but the majority of my writing I do on the weekends, and since my grandma's house doesn't have any quality internet connection, I was unable to work on it.

But, it's here now!

And, I'll leave it at this now, so I'll see all of you next time.

Goodbye,

_**Alban55**_


	15. Infalibilidad

**Gen Malaise**: Valicav isn't that important of a character, and he won't be playing much of a role. Though I can tell you that he is someone from the Elemental Countries, though I'm not going to say who.

By the way, the pronunciation of of the name is: Vah-lee-koff.

**ijpowers92:** Soul Society doesn't care about the other villages, as former denizens of Konoha actually went and provided a good reason for it's protection. I suppose you could say that there are Shinigami who were from other villages. Who knows, I may even feature them a little in the future. But, most of the focus on the Shinigami will be Konoha Shinigami and canon Shinigami.

**Lednacek:** I don't remember this story ever being a first-person narrative. Though I will say I messed up on the first thing.

* * *

Chapter 15: Infalibilidad

The average citizen in Konoha did not realize that they were all being watched by a powerful, unseen force from beyond the grave. That might not necessarily be a good thing, as it means that any Shinigami who was stationed there could take whatever they wanted of how much they wanted. Such was the case for many of the more corrupt and arrogant Shinigami, who were annoyed that they had to come to this backwater village in the first place.

They were elite Shinigami, they all thought, and it was above them to guard this little village from whatever weak Hollows that would attack it. One of the Shinigami, a six-foot tall bald male who was currently stationed on the roof of the Hokage mansion was probably the most prominent in this line of thought.

He thought he was God, but in actuality he was such a pathetic loser that stating his name would be insulting to everyone who was reading this story. He currently laid in a reclined position on the shambles of the red roof, eating the food he stole from a nearby tea shop.

"I don't see what's so special about this place, or why we need to protect a shithole like it." he muttered, chewing the dango he had stolen directly off someone elses plate. The Shinigami laid back and put his hands behind his head.

"We've had nothing but weak Hollows ever since we came here. Discovering this tiny little continent has been nothing but trouble. It just gives us more area that we have to protect! If I had my way, I would stop protecting the humans, and leave them to their deaths at the hands of the Hollows!" he said outloud, chortling piggishly at the thought of humans dying, but his expression changed dramatically when he saw a little blip of something high in the sky.

"What's that?" he asked, cracking an eye open at the thing, which seemed to be rapidly falling towards Earth.

He stumbled to his feet clumsily, drawing his Zanpakutou in response. But, the Shinigami was caught off guard when the blip of something disappeared from view in a blur.

"Wha-" he asked in confusion, before an extraordinary feeling of pain had rocketed through his entire being. The wounded Shinigami's eyes widened when he saw a small Adjuchas, barely bigger than him directly behind him, its grotesque red arm thrust through his abdomen.

The dying Shinigami screamed in pain as the Hollow seemed to grab hold of his innards with its sharp claws. His entire world went black as the Adjuchas ripped his innards straight out of his body, clutching a large chunk of his small intestine in his right claw.

Naruto grinned in pleasure as he held the slimy, bleeding organ in his paw. He enjoyed shifting from his quadrupedal form to a more bipedal stance, if only so he could perform a move like that.

"Ooh, this small intestine would look nice on me, don't you think?" he asked the air. Without waiting to receive an answer, he wrapped the uncoiled bit of intestine around his neck so that it looked like a hideous, bloody scarf. A makeshift human article of clothing on nothing more than a vicious, bloodthirsty monster.

Naruto stood on his hind legs, striking a ridiculous pose before doing a little erratic jig on the rooftop. He was already having so much fun... and he hadn't even started on the villagers yet.

He turned back to the dead Shinigami.

"Well, does it look good on me, _sir?_" he paused for a moment and received no answer.

"Well, _does _it?" he asked. He bent down over the dead Shinigami.

"_Hey_, why aren't you answering me? Is it because you're _dead?_ You can't take that excuse; I need _you_ to tell me how good your small intestine looks on me. Need I remind you that I'm giving you every opportunity to answer! So do it, or I'll kill you... again!" he whined.

When he received no answer, he growled and kicked the corpse of the Shinigami off the roof, and watched it plummet down to the streets below. He ripped the "scarf" from his neck, before throwing it down to join its master.

He knew the only reason he did that was because looking around the village made him furious. In the three years that he had been away, the village had made a full recovery, when he knew full well they didn't deserve such a thing.

Indeed, Danzou's face had been added to the only remaining space on the mountain, and there were many more buildings in the villages as they had built outwards to become something more resembling of a real capital.

Those weren't the only changes, however. Every building looked a little nicer, a little cleaner, as if the entire standard of living in the village had improved while he had been away. Gone was the grubby little apartment complex where he had lived, and in its place sprung up a sophisticated hotel, which became a popular resort for ambassadors visiting the village.

Naruto never saw the new building that had appeared. All he saw was his old apartment, and all the bad memories that accompanied it. More and more bad memories went into his head, a new one in place as soon as he had rid himself of the old one.

"It will all be over soon..." Naruto thought to himself. "And then I'll never have to think about this shithole ever again..."

His attention set itself upon the building whose roof he was currently sitting on, and the image of Danzou sitting at his desk, plotting the next use of _his_ chakra popped into his head. The desire to rip the old man a new one blossomed in his head, but he restrained himself from carrying out that desire.

"The old fool must wait... for now. Later, after he witnesses his pathetic village get destroyed, without even knowing the cause." Even after reassuring himself of that fact, the Adjuchas could only barely resist going to kill Danzou first.

This would be the last time he would ever see this continent, he lamented while looking at the street below. All of his affairs from after this point would exist in the afterlife, as a Hollow who fought Soul Society. So... he might as well make this as fun as possible.

He breathed in the "fresh" Konoha air, before loosely jumping down onto the street below...

* * *

Ever since the Institution of Experimental and Scientific Research had mysteriously disappeared off the map, the Shinigami were forced to use other methods than the Institute's technology to locate Hollows. What they did nowadays was gather the best reiatsu sensors in the world, and place them at specific sites around the specific area. The sensors would pick up on a Hollow's reiatsu, and alert the other Shinigami via a flare. If the Hollow was too strong for them to handle, they would send a Hell Butterfly back to Soul Society requesting backup.

The system wasn't too inefficient to be honest, and with the increased security on this particular village, it meant that backup called would consist of nothing less than high-level Shinigami.

And it just so turned out that the reiatsu sensor for the Konoha sector was picking up on some Hollow activity. Big Hollow activity too, if the large reiatsu was ever an indicator. Just feeling it sent his nerves on edge, and he fumbled to perform some Kidou that would alert the others of the Hollow's presence.

Whatever the case, he just knew that this was going to be one hell of a fight.

* * *

The other eleven Shinigami froze as they saw the red beam of Kidou light up the sky. A Hollow was either in the village or approaching it... a rare occurrence in its own right. But, orders from the higher-ups explained that there might be a sudden spike of Hollow attacks in this area.

Most of the Shinigami couldn't settle the feeling that this just might be the beginning.

The Shinigami met their reiatsu sensor at the center of the village, where he had sent off the flare. He looked unsettled at something that had occurred.

"Maeda! What's wrong?" asked a young, reliable looking male Shinigami that was leading the others to their destination Maeda didn't respond to him. Instead he gradually rose a shaky hand and pointed down at the streets below.

The Shinigami tensely turned around to look where Maeda was pointing, and noticed a small fox Hollow lumbering through the streets of Konoha. It seemed to be contemplating what was to be attacked first. It didn't look that threatening by Hollow standards, but the Shinigami could see several key traits that gave away what it was.

"A-Adjuchas..." said Maeda fearfully.

As soon as they heard that word and looked upon the beast stalking the streets below them, all breath hitched in their throat. Ten of the Shinigami seemed to be struggling for words, though the leader seemed to be transfixed at the Adjuchas.

"W-What do we d-do, Kuroki?" asked Maeda.

Kuroki snapped his head back into place, going serious in less than a second.

"Sasaki, call for backup immediately and get a Captain or Vice-Captain out here! This is something that is out of our league..." he ordered, appearing frustrated when Sasaki paused to respond to him.

"Go, Sasaki! Quit dawdling and send a Hell Butterfly to Soul Society, right now!" he bellowed.

"W-What do we do in the meantime, Kuroki?" asked a female Shinigami somewhere behind him.

Kuroki stared intensely at the Adjuchas below, wanted nothing more than to flee the scene and watch their superior deal with things. But... inwardly, he knew that he couldn't do that. Not as long as that Adjuchas was sauntering down, putting lives at risk...

"We... will engage the target."

* * *

Naruto just didn't know where to begin. It was he like a little boy roaming around a candy store, and having complete and unlimited access to everything available. All these people were sheep; no, they lower than sheep, as they didn't even realize that the big, bad wolf was here to come and eat them.

"Ooh, what's that over _here_..." he said, noticing a feeble old man that was barely able to stand. He contemplated eating him first, but his attention was drawn away from the old man and onto a few academy students that were bounding through the village playing their game of ninja.

"Ooh, maybe I should eat them first. Naughty children need to be punished, after all..." he chuckled at the thought, before he spotted a young mother and her baby rolling through the village.

"Jackpot! She'd make a fine first meal!" he exclaimed, as he sped over to the woman and child.

Kuroki noticed this immediately from his position on the rooftop.

"Wait a minute! He's made a move, and is going for that woman and her baby!" he exclaimed, frantically drawing his Zanpakutou. In a desperate attempt to save the mother and child, he used Shunpo to get over there like a man possessed, ignoring the cries of concern from his teammates.

"_Not quick enough. I won't make it..."_ he thought as he witnessed the Hollow almost on the oblivious woman.

"Time to eat!" Naruto laughed ridiculously, opening his mouth in an attempt to tear into the woman's flesh. He did tear into some flesh, but it wasn't the kind that he was expecting at that moment in time.

There, right in front of him protecting the two humans, stood a tall, lanky looking Shinigami with his Zanpakutou drawn. The black-clothed death god had used his own body to prevent him from eating the woman, which would explain why his teeth were currently sunk deeply into the Shinigami's shoulder.

The Zanpakutou fell uselessly from the Shinigami's hands, and Naruto heard voices come from on top of a rooftop some ways away. He glanced over there while keeping a firm grip on the Shinigami, and noticed around ten other Shinigami all congregated in a group, apparently worrying over their now wounded comrade.

The Shinigami weakly raised his free arm, pushing on the Hollow's mask in an attempt to buy time for the mother and child. Naruto growled in anger as the resistence, and slowly yet forcefully bit down harder on the Shinigami's shoulder.

The Shinigami yelled in pain when he began to feel his bones snap under the intense pressure the fox was exerting on him. Naruto had had quite enough fucking around, and tore the piece of shoulder flesh straight from Kuroki's body.

Kuroki screamed in pain as he crumpled to the ground, blood gushing from the fatal wound in torrents. Naruto munched on the mixture of muscle, bone, and sinew, his satisfaction for the meal steadily calming his rage.

Kuroki's vision was beginning to fade, and the last thing he ever saw was the hideous image of the fox Adjuchas chewing on his flesh, fresh red blood dribbling down his mask and neck. Still, Kuroki felt oddly at ease despite the horrible display, feeling a degree of warmth that came from rescuing that woman and her child...

Naruto noticed the Shinigami had passed away now, but there was no time for him to relish in a fine meal of Shinigami. His currently living comrades were calling out their dead comrade's name, all the while screaming powerful obscenities at him.

The amount of Shinigami present bothered him slightly, though the Hollow never let it show. As much as he were loath to admit, Valicav's words were coming back to haunt him, coating his thoughts with the idea that coming here was suicide.

He was not wrong... he wasn't. He would be able to succeed... even if Valicav's words were correct. All of these Shinigami appeared to be either unseated, or at a very low rank within their division. This should be no problem for him, but if this were it, then what was the danger of coming here that Valicav seemed so worried about?

"_They also have the ability to call Captains or Vice-Captains onto the scene on a whim..._" There was that, too. A sinking feeling plummeted into Naruto's gut, and he realized that if there was an abnormal amount of Shinigami here like Valicav stated, then that was likely true as well.

He closed his mind off from the villagers for the time being; he would need all the focus he had in order to complete the trial that lay before him.

He heard a whoosh of air from the rooftops over there, following by the sight of eleven black-clothed Shinigami land gracefully in a circle around him. They glared at him, gazes of pure hatred hovering in the air and all focused on one thing...

_Him._

The thought alone propelled the bipolar Hollow's mood from bad to good. The thrill of combat and the satisfaction you received when killing your enemies was much greater when they _despised_ you.

The Hollow opened his mouth and chuckled, flaunting the stained red teeth for all the Shinigami around him. He spat a fat wad of blood onto the ground, grinning wider when they seemed to tense up.

"I wish I could've had more _fun_ with your friend before I _**KILLED**_ him..." he hissed, trying to prod one of the Shinigami into attacking him. But, it was no luck. as although it caused a few of the Shinigami to tremble in rage, it never caused them to overtly attack him.

"Sasaki... did you send out that Hell Butterfly to Soul Society requesting back-up?" asked one of the female Shinigami in a low whisper.

"Yeah... it should've gotten there by now. Hopefully, they'll send a high-ranked Shinigami here within the next ten minutes..." said Sasaki.

"Then that means we'll just have to hold this bastard off until they get here, right?" asked another one rhetorically.

Sasaki chuckled humorlessly.

"That's exactly what we'll have to do..."

With that, the eleven Shinigami all jumped onto a smirking Naruto in a tag-team effort, unaware that Naruto was already beginning to charge up a Cero.

* * *

_Ten minutes later... _

Hirako Shinji didn't know what to think when he stepped out of the Dangai and into Konoha along with two Shinigami escorts. On one hand, he guessed it was good that this supposed Adjuchas hadn't done any damage to the civilians of Konoha yet. On the other hand, it clearly wasn't good that the Adjuchas was _also_ snacking on eleven freshly dead Shinigami at that moment.

Shinji kept his composure at the sight of the dead bodies, but the two escorts on each side of him weren't so lucky. It took a release of his spiritual pressure to prevent them from lashing out in rage at the currently eating Hollow.

That wasn't to say that Shinji was a happy camper. In fact, right now Shinji was more grumpy than anything. He was called from his break to go defend Konoha from an Adjuchas. He at least thanked _God_ that he didn't have to go there with his limiter. Granted, he was one of the main supporters of the proposal, but he'd be damned if he didn't chew Minato's ass out for this later.

The Adjuchas was ignoring them currently, even though it damn well knew that they were there.

"Stand back, you two." Shinji said to his escorts. "If you two get caught up with someone like him, then you'll die..." he whispered seriously, a no-nosense look on his face.

"Y-Yes, Hirako-fukutaichou!" they saluted, backing up to near the entrance of the Dangai as the Vice-Captain confidently walked forward toward the Hollow.

The Hollow was pretending that Shinji wasn't there, but the Vice-Captain wasn't fooled in the least. As soon as he approached the Hollow enough, it would lash out with its claws and try to decapitate him. He had seen it several times before.

_Clang!_

Yep, this Hollow was pretty damn predictable. As soon as he was within five feet of him, the Hollow attacked. But, Shinji managed to avoid the attack easily be skillfully drawing his Zanpakutou at that exact instant.

"You're interuppting my meal, bro. Don't they teach you any manners back in Soul Society. I'm so offended at this that I think I should kill you and defecate all over your corpse..." jeered Naruto repulsively, making Shinji grimace at the image.

"5th Division Vice-Captain, Hirako Shinji..." he introduced, to which Naruto raised an eyebrow. The deadlock was ended between the two when Naruto pulled his claw away from the Zanpakutou and jumped back.

"What the hell? Do you guys introduce yourselves to everyone you meet, cuz I really think I don't give a shit what your name is." said Naruto.

Shinji, instead of looking offended, merely grinned sheepishly at the comment.

"No... it's just that I was always taught in the Shinigami academy to introduce myself to a worthy opponent... even if they're a smelly, raggedy, retarded looking fox like you are..." Shinji commented.

A fire ignited in Naruto's eyes, but other than that he looked completely unphased at the insulting comment.

"You're really started to test my patience, Shinigami. I've just about had it with your species' bullshit. How you think you're all obligated to protect this law, what with your "sending Vice-Captains and Captains on a whim" out here. Well guess what, Shinji, or whatever the fuck your name is, it's because of me that this place was discovered by the Hollows in the first place, seeing as I actually was here and killed two Shinigami and a handful of humans." Naruto bragged.

Shinji's eyes widened.

"Wait... that was you?" he asked, ignoring how this Hollow knew about their new law.

Naruto just grinned, to which Shinji turned all-serious.

"I see. And, if you're coming here a second time, it means that you either have a strong attraction to the type of souls, or have an ulterior motive here. What that ulterior motive is I have no idea, but I do know that you're going to die here, Adjuchas..." declared Shinji, his Zanpakutou at the ready and in full preparation for a long fight.

* * *

Outside of the village, away from all the crazed fighting inside the village, another Garganta appeared. Yet, within the blackness of the void wasn't a horde of hungry Hollows, but just one, a small, humanoid one that looked very unassuming. However, if anyone detected this Hollow coming into the human world, Soul Society would have gone bonkers.

Valicav Almazin was stepping out of the Garganta, his eyes fixated on the village in front of him. Somewhere... in that village, Naruto was fighting. And that reiatsu spike that had appeared was definitely of equal strength of Naruto's.

"A Vice-Captain, most likely..." uttered Valicav to himself, as he headed into the village. He just hoped that he could get there in time before Naruto got himself killed.

* * *

Despite Valicav's worries, the young Hollow was holding himself rather well against a Vice-Captain. His guard and armor didn't allow for any of the Shinigami's sword slashes to wound him, and more than once had Naruto been able to deliver some powerful blows to Shinji's face.

Shinji prepared for an overhead strike with his sealed Zanpakutou, trying to ignore the injury that was seeping blood down his forehead. But, Naruto shot his front paw out at Shinji's hands before he could get the attack off, nearly jarring the sword from his grasp.

The Vice-Captain of the 5th Division stumbled backwards from the blow, trying to keep a stable grip on his Zanpakutou. But, Naruto was already on him again, using his superior weight to send Shinji to the ground.

His raised his black claws in an attempt to finish off Shinji, but the Vice-Captain wriggled free from the heavy weight, and blocked the downward slash with his sword. Shinji used Shunpo to get up into the air, before hovering there in an attempt to create an aerial battle that would work in his favor.

Naruto growled; he still couldn't do that levitation thing that high-level Shinigami seemed to be able to use. But, he wouldn't let a handicap like that take him out of the battle. He ran towards the wall of a nearby house, causing rubble and debris to fall off as he bounced off the wall to get a mid-air standpoint. Shinji narrowed his eyes at the trick, before he braced himself when he saw that the Adjuchas was charging up his orange Cero.

He fired it in mid-air, but the attack had no such effect on the airborne Shinigami as Shinji simply cleaved the energy in half using his Zanpakutou. Naruto hung out in the air for a little while, leaving himself a wide opening for Shinji to exploit.

Sure enough, Shinji rocketed off down to the earth, like an meteor of black with an extending, sharp arrow coming off the end. In a split-second, Naruto had managed to protect his mask from getting impaled, but he couldn't stop the Shinigami from stabbing his Zanpakutou directly through the left side of his stomach.

Naruto roared in pain, but he wasn't down for the count yet. He would use this time to get a surprise attack in on Shinji.

"La Curva!" he roared, and fired the deadly curve of orange energy at Shinji as point-black range. Was Shinji ever surprised to see the Adjuchas launch off an attack like that in an injured state. The corrosive energy connected with his stomach, eating away at his robes and searing his skin until it was charred. The Vice-Captain was propelled backwards as well, and was unable to press the attack on Naruto any longer.

The two of them fell to the ground, their little skirmish in the air done for the time being. Shinji was the first one to get up, his injury not being as severe as Naruto's. Panting wildly, he held his sword at an upward angle.

"Collapse..."

The sword pointed itself downward.

"Sakanade." Shinji whispered.

The sword seemed to spin upon its own axis as it transformed. Gone was the traditional hilt and guard, and in its place was a strange metal ring, which the holed blade seemed to spin around on.

"So that's the infamous Shinigami release I've heard so much about. It's my first time seeing one..." muttered Naruto as he hoisted himself to his feet.

Shinji just smiled roguishly, not commenting on Naruto's muses.

"Do you smell something good?" he asked rhetorically, as a pinkish mist rose into the air.

"What?" asked a confused Naruto, before he realized that he _did_ in fact smell something good.

"Don't worry, Adjuchas. It's already taking place..."

The two escorts of Shinji's were staring in awe at Shinji and his Shikai, never feeling that he would have the need to release his Zanpakutou in a place like this.

"So, that's Hirako-fukutaichou's Shikai. It's even more impressive than I could possibly imagine..." said the first one.

"But, if he feels the need to use his Shikai here at full power, then the power of that Adjuchas must be great..." concurred the second one.

The two sat there for a moment with their heads in the clouds, before the first one came onto a realization.

"Oh yeah! We need to get a picture of the Hollow and document it for records in case it ever escapes!" he shouted.

He turned to his partner.

"Do you have the new model of Soul Detection Device?" he asked. The Soul Detection Device, or as it was known formally as the Denraishinki, was the method that Shinigami used to track Hollows. However, with the Institution of Experimental and Scientific Research disbanding, it was impossible to get any service for detection, but it would at least take pictures.

The second escort pulled the bulky thing out of his pocket. By today's standards, it looked like a ridiculous 1980's cell phone, except brown in color. However, it would be hundreds of years before the human world would ever come on to anything like it.

"Okay, now take the picture before it notices us..." said the first escort. "After you're done with that, call in for more back-up. . ."

"Taking place? What is?" asked Naruto, but Shinji didn't even need to answer that question because the world as Naruto was viewing it was rapidly becoming distorted, until it was a complete flip-flop of what he knew.

"Welcome to the inverted world..." Shinji's catch phrase.

Naruto was getting a headache from what was currently going on. _Everything_ was upside down.

"What's going on?" he asked, still in disbelief from the illusion.

"It should be pretty obvious by now, Adjuchas. Everything's inverted." said Shinji, before he sprung into action.

"I don't know what's going on, but right now I just have to fight you, don't I?" said Naruto as Shinji rushed at him.

He tried to block Shinji's sword slash, but instead of hitting anything, he found himself getting cut on the back, the exact opposite place where Shinji had been attacking from. Naruto attempted to clutch his back wound, but just ended up touching his torso instead.

"Dammit, what's going on?"

"Everything's inverted. _Everything_. That includes the position of your perceived wound." said Shinji's voice from someplace Naruto couldn't see.

Naruto turned around immediately, trying to locate the voice of his opponent. But, as soon as he turned around, the Hollow was slashed again by a Shinji who just seemed to appear from nowhere.

But, as he was getting slashed, Naruto noticed something very peculiar about this world. It seemed like for a split-second during Shinji's attack, his view of the inverted world reverted back to normal. Maybe, the mist wasn't potent enough to override pain yet. But, Naruto didn't see how he'd be able to make use of being slashed all the time. He wasn't some spiky-haired, eye-patched tank who could shrug off hundreds of injuries and still be able to enjoy battle.

He caught a glimpse of Shinji again, and carelessly launched another Curva at him. But, like previous attacks, it turned out to be useless as the world was inverted. Naruto racked his brain, trying to think of something in his arsenal that he could use.

There was this new attack that he had been practicing in Hueco Mundo for a while; he wondered if something like that would work in a world like this. But first, he would need to wait for the right time, while continuously fending off attacks.

He saw Shinji charging at him yet again, but this time Naruto turned directly around and attempted to slash at the Vice-Captain. He still missed his mark by quite a bit, but it was enough to make Shinji avoid taking a risk at slashing him.

Another slash. He wasn't in position yet. A lucky blocked attack. Naruto was beginning to charge energy to one of his tails.

A direct frontal slash at him from directly ahead of him.

"_Now!"_

_"_Circulo Cola!" Naruto exclaimed, as he shot the orange bit of light off from his tail. At first, the beam looked just like an ordinary Cero with it's trajectory. But pretty soon, Naruto's tails resonated with the energy to make a wide left. Pretty soon, the orange light had completely circled around the area, before being absorbed into Naruto's tails.

Shinji, who in reality was attacking from behind, was caught off-guard by the strange attack, and was hit by the orange beam just as it was about to go back to Naruto's tails. The Vice-Captain screamed in pain as he was propelled forward by the blast. He smacked into the wall of a building, barely conscious with his skin charred.

With the weakness of its owner, Shinji's Shikai faded and the pink mist dispersed, revealing a normal world for Naruto and a defeated Shinji.

"H-Hirako-fukutaichou..." said the two escorts simultaneously, and the second one dropped his communicator in shock. There lay their Vice-Captain, leaning against the wall, defeated by that Adjuchas. There was just no way something like that could happen, it was ludicrous... but it was... _true_. Their Vice-Captain _had _been defeated by an Adjuchas.

The two Shinigami were beginning to panic. Over the well-being of Shinji, over the well-being of themselves, and over the well-being of the village.

"Hirako-fukutaichou!" cried out the second escort, before the first one clapped his hand over his mouth. The second one appeared to try some muffled speech, but the first one shushed him immediately.

Naruto swiveled his head to look at them, a dazed yet angry look fixated upon the Shinigami.

"He's looking at us!" whispered the first escort frantically. "When did you call for backup?" he asked his comrade.

"A-About seven minutes ago. I requested a Captain this time because it looked like a Vice-Captain would have trouble..."

The second escort could not hide his concern. With a faraway scream, and against the wishes of his comrade, he ran as fast as his legs could carry him over to where Shinji was lying barely conscious.

"I-Idiot. D-Don't come o-over here. H-He'll k-kill you..." wheezed Shinji from his position against the wall.

Sure enough, Naruto bared his teeth menacingly as the escort ran over to aid his Vice-Captain. Quick as a flash, Naruto swung his claws horizontally at the unfocused Shinigami, severing head from body in an instant.

Even though it was a remarkably clean kill on Naruto's part, the Shinigami's comrades yelled as they witnessed him be decapitated. Naruto picked up the severed head with his claws, and hugged it to his body warmly.

"Ooh, I love my severed head! Oh, yes I _do!"_ he said in a faux, high-pitched, sing-song voice. Was he ever happy to be able to act goofy again, especially since he hadn't gotten the chance in his last fight.

But, as he hugged the severed head, Naruto also applied too much force to it, and as a result the head was crushed underneath the weight, and blood and brains were sprayed all over Naruto's body.

"Oops. Looks like I squeezed too hard."

The first escort glared at him hatefully. How dare that Hollow treat his buddy's severed head like that. He was just about to let the anger get the best of him, and engage the Hollow in combat, when a large figure flew straight over his head. Luckily for him, the creature didn't take his head off at all, but both he and Shinji were shocked when he clumsily scooped up the Adjuchas over his head and made off with it.

"W-Wait! C-Come back h-here w-with-" Shinji was cut off as he began wheezing again.

"Hirako-fukutaichou!" exclaimed the living escort, forgetting the Adjuchas and rushing over to his Vice-Captain's aid.

"_What was that? That figure... it was completely human-sized, but I sensed a powerful reiatsu from it, and its reiatsu was also more like a Hollow than anything..."_ Shinji thought, pondering over the existence of the strange creature.

His eyes moved all over the place while he thinking, and finally widened when he came to a realization...

* * *

"Let go of me, you moron! Let go!" roared Naruto, as he noticed that Valicav was the one who had grabbed his out of nowhere and pulled him away from the village. The old Hollow said nothing to him, and did nothing more than tighten his grip on Naruto as he opened a Garganta in mid-air.

"I had him! Didn't you see that? I beat the Vice-Captain you were so afraid of, and I could've gone on and destroyed the village from that point on! How long do you plan on getting in my way, Valicav?"

Valicav sighed at his idiotic remark. "You still don't get it, Naruto?"

Naruto glared at him, and then turned away to avoid having to speak to Valicav.

"It would have been a Captain next, Naruto. Didn't you see that the Vice-Captain had two escorts and a Dangai open. One of them most likely called for more back-up, and this time it would've been a Captain..."

"Shut up! I don't care about that. I could've taken a Captain if I wanted to..." he whispered to himself.

"Fool. You couldn't have killed a Captain, no matter how much you struggled. And, I don't think you understand your position. I saved you out of the goodness of my so-called heart, but next time you go and pull something like this I won't come to your rescue."

"No one asked you to come save me..." Naruto muttered.

"Next time I won't..."

"Fine!"

"_Fine!"_

As the two Hollows bantered, Valicav slipped into the black portal for Hollows and was safe from the Shinigami.

* * *

"I'm fine, I tell you!" Shinji snapped at his escort.

Clearly, Shinji was not fine, as when he stood to walk, blood began pouring in even greater quantities than when he was sitting down.

"Hirako-fukutaichou!" shouted the escort in concern.

"Ignore my injuries for right now. The most important thing that happened here is that we let a very dangerous Hollow escape from us. If we leave that one alone, he'll definitely kill more Shinigami. And the Gotei 13 is already strapped for forces right now."

He limped on over to where the Dangai was, and noticed the Mobile Communicator device laying on the ground next to the Dangai.

"I'll go back and report this development to the Captain, and receive medical treatment for myself later. I hope you at least gathered some intel of that Hollow before it escaped." he said. The emergency situation right now was apparently kicking in some unused adrenaline.

"Y-Yes, sir!" the escort saluted.

Shinji nodded.

"Good, that will become useful in future situations. Now, I want you to listen carefully to my orders, right now. As soon as we get back to Soul Society, I want you to _immediately _go to the 9th Division and give them that information so they can put in their files. This is a Hollow that needs to be dealt with carefully, and the first step in the right direction is to add it's information and threat level to our database."

Another salute.

"Good, now let's go..." Shinji ordered as he and the escort stepped into the Dangai.

Later that day, the escort turned in his report to the 9th Division, who scanned the Hollow's picture and produced a slightly blown-up 8" X 10" replica of the snapshot. The representative Shinigami placed the picture, along with the information in one of their files.

"Quadrupedal Fox Adjuchas. Seven feet long by two feet wide. Grievances: twelve humans killed, sixteen Shinigami killed, has attacked the village of Konohagakure no Sato on more than one occasion. And lastly, is the primary reason behind the Hollow's discovery of the continent of the Elemental Countries..." he read off through Naruto's information.

"Threat Level: Critical. From now on, this Hollow shall go by the codename of "Vulpes C."" said the Shinigami as he finished compiling the information. When he finished, he turned the escort with a worried look.

"This Hollow is clearly very dangerous, and at such a high-threat level for a first-time appearance, we need to be on our toes with this new "rising star". Which is why the 9th Division has decided to do the following course of action..."

With that, the Shinigami walked over to where the Shinigami version of file cabinets where, and placed that Hollow's information in the confines of a particular Hollow, one that was labeled "Most Wanted Hollows".

* * *

Chapter done! This Chapter was SUPER fun to write, so I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I did writing it. And with that, please don't forget to reviews. Reviews always brighten up my day, remember that!

**Translations and Other Features**

(1). Sakanade: Counter Stroke

(2). Circulo Cola: Tail Ring

That about wraps things up this time, and I'll see all of you next time in Chapter 16. Don't forget to check my profile to see when it will be put up!

Goodbye,

**_Alban55_**


	16. Una Nueva Formación

**Bloody Seraphim**: It's similar to what happens in the actual Bleach storyline. I'm sure someone was alerted, but they probably just tried to dismiss it rationally or what not.

**Faroush**: Not particularly, I just tried to create something similar to other Hollow codenames. Like "Fishbone D" or "Bulbous G", which are actually Hollows in the Bleach storyline.

**malefan**: I did blow it way out of proportion for this story, but I do believe that Bleach characters are much stronger than Naruto characters are. That's also kind of like a general thought around on the forums as well.

**NarutoXYugitoFTW**: Shinji's a Vice-Captain right now, and the level between Captain and Vice-Captain is enormous. The point I'm trying to make is that Shinji is nowhere near Captain-level at this point in time.

**Haruchai**: Nope, Shinigami can survive from much more devastating wounds than humans can.

That's all for this time. Remember, that I will answer any questions as long as they don't spoil the story. With that in mine, please review and enjoy Chapter 16 of Amenaza.

* * *

Chapter 16: Una Nueva Formación

Naruto was shoved none too gently onto the white sand by the former Vasto Lorde king, yet this did nothing to alleviate the tension occurring between the two. There was a quiet mechanical noise, and the Garganta behind Valicav was closed within a few seconds.

The former King didn't move, opting to sternly stare condescendingly down upon the younger Hollow, who was currently glaring back up hatefully.

He had warped them back to the bottom of the canyon, directly outside his tower. Valicav could tell that this was the last place that Naruto wanted to be. The young Hollow finally rise himself to his feet, going up to Valicav and digging his rough claws into the Vasto Lorde's shoulders.

Said Hollow didn't even flinch at the sharp claws that entered his skin.

"You son of a bitch!" Naruto roared, his words barely recognizable with all the hate and anger that existed within his tone. The first sentence he said was full of conviction, but his voice began to waver a little as he spoke afterwards.

"I... _had _them. The village... I could have destroyed them if you hadn't shown up. It's all your fucking fault, asshole. You and your retarded fear of the Shinigami prevented me from completing my dream right there. You-"

It was then that Valicav made the first move since coming to Hueco Mundo. He raised his fist slowly, before bringing it down firmly upon Naruto's mask. The younger Hollow crumpled from the surprising amount of force that had been behind the punch, and he flew back several feet before lying on the ground prone.

"Idiot..." he stated stoically. "Weren't you listening to anything I was saying before this? There was no way you could've ever beaten a Captain at your current level of skill. A Captain's power is far more than you could ever imagine. It's a level far beyond that of anything a Vice-Captain could perform. I just saved your life back there, Naruto, so I would appreciate it if you showed me a little _gratitude_..." Valicav's voice raised slightly as he finished his speech.

"Oh, please. Who would ever show gratitude to someone like _you?_" Naruto said angrily, rubbing his paw across his mask while pulling himself to his feet.

Valicav let a little disdain come onto his face. He turned away from Naruto, and began to walk, but it was not so he could go back into his tower. In fact, the former king was walking away from his place of residence.

He came to a pause about thirty feet away, leaning slightly on a particular good-sized quartz tree.

"Do you want power?" he asked rhetorically. Naruto was suddenly thrown for a loop by the odd behavior. Wasn't it clear to Valicav that he always wanted power?

"Do you want revenge?" Valicav asked. Naruto was beginning to get annoyed with these types of questions.

"Yeah... I want both of those things." he said cautiously.

Valicav didn't turn to face him, but he nodded anyway.

"If you want either of those things, then you have to be patient, and learn to strike your enemies at the right time. Don't be like me, who was so overconfidence in his abilities that it cost him everything that I ever wanted in Hueco Mundo."

Naruto calmed down at Valicav's words, but took a little moment to ponder this.

"If what you say is true, I would need a tremendous amount of power to be able to destroy the village. Yet, I don't have the time to just slowly gain enough power. Even if I did gain that much power, by the time I did, everyone I would want to get revenge would be dead..." he said weakly, his head pivoted towards the ground.

"Do you really believe that would be detrimental to your dream?" asked Valicav.

Naruto turned up at that question, greatly confused at what the Vasto Lorde was implying. Was it that there still was a chance for it even after everyone in the current generation of Konoha was dead? A small swelling of hope arose in his "heart"; he just needed to figure out what Valicav was talking about before he came to a reasonable conclusion.

"What are you talking about? Is there... any... way... to..." he cut off slowly, before the Adjuchas' eyes widened in realization.

He was a fucking idiot. Why didn't he realize that before?

Valicav nodded.

"It seems that you've figured out where I'm going with this."

Naruto nodded.

"Yes, even if you wait one-hundred years to attack Konoha, after everyone there currently has died, there would be no difference. That's because when they died, they would move on to _Soul Society_, which you plan on destroying anyway. In essence, no matter when and where you do it, you'd still be getting your revenge."

"I implore you, Naruto, to take your time and deal with this very precarious situation. There's no telling when the guard around Konoha will be dropped, if ever. You have already witnessed the result of going there alone will do, so the only way for you to attack that place is to raise an army and finish off the village in a clean sweep."

There was a glimmer of something in Valicav's eyes when he said, though Naruto couldn't quite place what it was. It almost immediately disappeared, but Naruto couldn't forget the strange emotion that made itself present in Valicav's eyes.

Was it... regret? Sadness, maybe?

"Naruto, stop spacing out for a moment and listen to what I'm going to tell you here. I know that you also have the desire to become a powerful king in Hueco Mundo and overthrow Baraggan's Las Noches. But, before you do that, there is one requirement you absolutely must fulfill."

Naruto's interest was piqued. He had always considered the kingdom goal to be secondary to his Konoha goal, but it looks like now they might become intermingled with each other. One would lead to the other, so to speak.

"And what is that?"

Valicav stared at him, his yellow eyes now filled with uncertainty.

"You must become a Vasto Lorde..."

Naruto's eyes widened behind his mask, and he made an audible gaping noise. Vasto Lorde were particularly rare in Hueco Mundo, and a Hollow becoming one would definitely go down in Hueco Mundo legend.

"W-What. Do have any idea how difficult it is to become a Vasto Lorde? If something like that is one of the requirements, then I'm just better off not forming my own kingdom, and attacking Konoha on my own."

Valicav made a slight humming noise.

"And here I thought you were a confident young Hollow. What happened to your resolve? It is definitely true that becoming a Vasto Lorde is no easy task, but if you're going to place your dreams ahead of everything else then this is something you're going to have to do."

"But-"

"I _know_ that you can do this, Naruto. I would have thought escaping from Las Noches was impossible, but you pulled it off. Just think of it as one of the many obstacles you'll have to overcome..."

The two Hollow were silent for a moment, the quiet allowing Valicav's words to sink into Naruto.

"Once you have become a Vasto Lorde, you must travel far, far to the east. Far enough to reach the ocean. Yes, Naruto; there _is_ an ocean in Hueco Mundo. It's not all desert. I swear, too many Hollows have such a limited knowledge of their own home world." Valicav ranted.

"Anyway, once you reach the ocean, you'll find an enormous plateau with a series of caves near the bottom. That is the spot. It's the only territorially safe area in this area of Hueco Mundo, and it's virtually unknown to the other rulers."

Naruto was thoroughly amazed at the fact there was something like an ocean in Hueco Mundo. Everywhere he looked it was nothing but craggy desert.

"I didn't realize Hueco Mundo had an ocean. Just how big is Hueco Mundo?" he asked, getting off-topic.

Valicav grunted at the question, but decided to answer it anyway.

"I'm not sure. All I know is that it's much, much bigger than the Shinigami and even most Hollows give it credit for. Easily bigger than both the human world and Soul Society combined. I spent my first twenty years doing nothing more than traveling this place. But, I doubt I have even seen five percent of what Hueco Mundo truly has to offer."

Naruto had his breath taken away by the account. There was so much to see in this place, but he knew he would never be able to fully experience it. It was something that created an aura of insignificance for him, which no matter how powerful one become would never be taken away.

It must be a lie.

A... lie?

Lies were such ugly things, but they were so beneficial at the same time. Even the devil could imitate a saint if he just lied. That was the ugly part. But a parent could also keep their child away from horrors of the world through a lie.

That... was such a beautiful thing.

People have such minds that they tend to condemn liars, no matter how beneficial it may be to the recipient. The twisted embrace of a lie was the worst feeling in the world for some people, and they would take it out on those who had lied.

Maybe that was exactly what this Hollow in front of him was doing. Lying to him. Naruto didn't see any particular reason why Valicav should be helping him; was his name really Valicav in the first place? He had grown soft and trusting since his spat with Fuermos, when he should have become the opposite. How long would it be before this liar betrayed him?

"Why... are you helping me?" Naruto asked.

Valicav, despite all his emotional turmoil, didn't react. He stood there like a lone tower, as stoic as it was powerful. He didn't even respond to the question asked.

And then, the lone tower moved away from Naruto. Turning his back away from Naruto, he walked thirty feet before pausing, the tension in the air reaching even him. And then, he spoke.

"These last three years have been difficult for me. My kingdom has fallen, my comrades have disappeared, and my tower has gone into decay. I would like to think of going back to those happy days where my kingdom was at its height, but now I feel that would do nothing for me."

Naruto should have been surprised by the sudden monologue, but if he was he didn't show it.

"And then, you showed up. You challenged Baraggan's Las Noches, and came out alive. You've attacked Konoha, and proven yourself different from all the yokels that usually pass through this place. And you are similar to me. In life, you wanted nothing more than to help the Shinobi world, but in the afterlife you have nothing but pure hatred and disgust for it. You have big dreams, Naruto. Ones that someone like me could never accomplish."

Valicav paused in his speech, whether he was debating to add something to it.

"And, I would be worse than scum if I didn't help my direct descendant out..."

Valicav smiled, hearing Naruto try and splutter out a response.

"D-Descendant? M-Me? That would m-make us..." he started.

Valicav nodded.

"Family..." he stated simply.

Valicav started walking away again, coming to a stop much farther away. He looked up the perpetual Hueco Mundo moon, feeling a strange sense of calmness wash all over him. In that way, he was the same as Naruto.

"But, family we may be, there is nothing more I can do for you. I've been watching you develop since you were twelve years old, but I grow weary of the public scene. I bet it's time for me to settle down, and spend the remainder of my life wandering Hueco Mundo, and lamenting what I could have done differently."

He started walking again.

"Goodbye Naruto, we will never see each other again. My time in the limelight is long over... and yours is just beginning. Do the Hollow species a favor, and fulfill your dreams. Those Shinigami won't be able to stand in your way anymore..."

With those final words, Valicav began to walk away into the horizon, never looking back at Naruto. Naruto stood there dumbly for a few seconds, but he realized he had forgotten something.

"W-Wait, Valicav. Can you at least tell me what your name was in life!" he called after the retreating Vasto Lorde.

Valicav didn't stop walking, but he did in fact respond to that question.

"I have long forgotten my human name, Naruto!" he called back. "But, I do remember the title I went by when I was in the Shinobi world. You should know what I mean when I say the word Rikudou!" he called back.

Naruto's jaw dropped open. This old Hollow was the legendary sage? _He _was related to the creator of ninjutsu?

A small swell hit the desert at that exact moment, and a large cloud of sand arose between Naruto and Valicav. Naruto had to close his eyes to avoid the pain, and when he opened them again the cloud had cleared.

And the old Hollow was gone.

* * *

_Five years later..._

"There's another one..." Naruto said sadistically, as he tore into the flesh of a bird-like Adjuchas, while the bird's companions looked on in horror.

"Mmm, mmm. This one's really good..." he said with a mouth full of bird. The other Adjuchas seemed to take offense at that, pouncing on the much smaller Adjuchas in an attempt of revenge.

"You guys want in too?" Naruto asked, and scooped up a little bit of the bird's flesh with his claws.

Quick as a flash, he was on one of the other Hollows, stuffing the bloody muscle and sinew down its throat.

"Okay! Have some of this bird; it's good stuff!" he cried happily, as the Hollow gagged on the flesh of its dead friend. Using its disgust as a distraction, Naruto thrust his powerful claws into the Adjucha's head, penetrating its brain and killing it instantly.

The final Adjuchas was completely unfazed by its comrade's death, but the Cero that Naruto had fired off instantly atomized the attacking Adjuchas.

The Hollow collapsed onto its back, breathing in happiness at the three Hollow's it had killed. Naruto had been doing this for five years now, and even though he felt his power increasing with every meal, he knew it wasn't enough to become Vasto Lorde.

Naruto didn't let that bother him. This process was turning out a lot simpler that he had imagined, and he had proven himself to be fully capable of surviving against other Adjuchas. Maybe he did have what it takes to become a Vasto Lorde.

The one he had eaten today was his seven-hundreth and fifty-forth Adjuchas, a pretty low number for someone who had been doing it for half a decade. Maybe living as an absolute untamed Hollow had changed him a little. He supposed something like that would cause changes no matter what.

"_The sand sure is comfortable today. It puts me in the mood for thinking back on old memories... _" he thought wistfully, and an image of Fuermos popped into his mind.

"I'm on my way towards completing your dream too, ya fucking douchebag. But of course, you wouldn't know because I didn't tell you I would be doing that in the first place. Valicav wants me to better the Hollow species as well, so it seems that your dream is going to be a direct result of mine, isn't it Fuermos?" he said to the sky, giggling a little when he thought of the nasty deed he performed when killing Fuermos.

He knew in his heart that Fuermos was a great Hollow, and that he had stood out as a shining bastion in the middle of this wasteland. For better or for worse, the firefly had managed to inspire in him something that Naruto had thought extinct.

And Naruto hated him for that.

The Hollow hated how Fuermos had managed to instill in him the very thing he was trying to stamp out of himself. Oh, he bet that his Shinigami self was laughing at him from beyond the grave.

He just couldn't decline Fuermos' dream that day, even if he put on a façade that made it seem that way. It made him feel inferior, knowing that despite all his efforts, he still hadn't managed to become free of those worthless feelings of compassion.

Maybe he needed to pick up the pace on this sort of thing.

Naruto pulled himself to his feet in an attempt to stave off these kinds of thoughts, and looked to his north. Some distance away there was a rough, craggy rock formation with a series of holes in each rock.

The fox Hollow frowned. There was likely nothing there but a colony of weak Hollows. Easy pickings for him, but they wouldn't do anything in increasing in power. Not to mention, they weren't very tasty or filling at all.

It wouldn't be worth the trip there, and would just create unnecessary exhaustion for him. A bad thing when you could be attacked at any time. Naruto learned quickly to use high places to recuperate from wounds, as that greatly reduced the chance of being attacked.

Unfortunately, Naruto almost always sustained wounds in battles, and as a result he was forced to take shelter in those places. It didn't help that he couldn't go out and hunt for fear of being killed when weak.

A small lizard Hollow burrowed its way from underground, fixing its little eyes upon Naruto. Naruto stared back uninterested, even when the lizard crawled up a nearby quartz tree, never letting its eyes wander away from him.

Naruto sighed.

"I just fought, and already I'm longing for the thrill of combat. Ever since I began hunting, I've felt the need for battle much stronger. It becomes unbearable to even be away from fighting for longer than a few days. But, I don't suppose you would understand..." he said to the little Hollow, who didn't respond.

The lizard Hollow burrowed back underground, and Naruto watched it with an unreadable expression on his face. He couldn't shake this uneasy feeling that had just washed all over him. As he walked in a certain direction, the feeling became more pronounced.

He walked for about a mile westward, to where he came across some abnormally large sand dunes. Each one could easily house a colony of Hollows. Indeed, he did sense some weak reiatsu within the dunes, but there was one in particular that set his nerves on end.

It danced around in the air, and filled his body with powerful pressure he hadn't felt in a long time. It had the coldness of steel, yet the ferocity and power of a lion. The reiatsu came from all directions, making it impossible to locate.

A bead of salty sweat rolled down inside Naruto's mask, his breath hitched in his throat and his hair stood on end. Whatever was making this reiatsu was no slouch, that much was for sure.

"So, the ominous feeling I've had for a while was correct, after all. There's someone here, and by the looks of it, it's a powerful Hollow," Naruto whispered to himself.

Up upon the top of the enormous sand dune, a lone figure stood, shadowed by the moon. The silhouette's head was tilted downwards, watching Naruto's every move.

* * *

A firework went off in the village of Konoha, filling the night sky with beautiful shades of red and green. Another one went off shortly afterwards, this time sprayed much different colors than its predecessor.

The denizens of the village below clapped and cheered at the display. Children rode on their parent's shoulders, eyes strained to take in every site of the celebration. Drunken adults laughed heartily with each other as they recalled a certain embarrassing incident or whatnot.

Even the ninja joined in the festivities, using the time to catch up with friends or relatives when they've had such precious little time to over the past five years. They just couldn't believe that their trial was finally over. Even annoying children couldn't sully the mood they were in.

For today was the day they were finally victorious. Iwagakure had finally surrendered to them, the long, unexpected war taking a serious toll on their military. Though, when it came down to it, they were never a match for the superior Konoha shinobi and their Kyuubi chakra.

But, a simple loss wasn't all that occurred today. Danzou would accept nothing less than an unconditional surrender, and as a result, Iwagakure and all of Tsuchi no Kuni was annexed by Konoha.

Which was current cause of the celebration. Their Will of Fire would spread farther than they could ever imagine, and Konoha's prosperity would begin anew. The terrible conditions from eight years ago seemed like nothing more than a dream.

Their empire was now fully on the path to greatness, but this war was not without it's losses. While tonight was a day of celebration, tomorrow would be a day of mourning to all the brave Konoha shinobi who had lost their lives fighting for their village.

Among the losses were twenty-one year old Jounin Hyuuga Hinata, who was killed two years into the war in an ambush. There was also twenty-four year old Jounin and Medical Captain Haruno Sakura, who died barely a month before the war officially ended.

Haruno-sama's death hit then village hard, as they had never seen a finer fighter and healer in all their time. Even the great Tsunade, who had passed away three years ago due to cancer couldn't compare to her.

But, their sacrifices were not in vain, as their village and country would now become the pinnacle of civilization in the Elemental Countries. Kyuubi chakra implants were becoming more and more successful with the advancement of their experimentation, and village's standard of living was skyrocketing ever higher.

The sixteenth generation of Konoha was leading it soundly. They had far surpassed the fifteenth generation in abilities, and generations to come after them would continue to grow in power like the tradition of Konoha says.

Danzou's successor had been named, and their were high hopes that he would lead the village down a path of prosperity once their current leader died.

The day of mourning passed by eventfully, and the citizens of Konoha were able to go to bed peacefully that night, their thoughts on the heroes of Konoha and how they had died for their sake.

Less than two weeks later, the Rokudaime Hokage Danzou passed away in his sleep. He was eighty years old.

* * *

Another Chapter done!

It isn't as exciting as the previous, and it is very short, but I think it serves it's purpose well as an intermittent Chapter. I just don't know why though, but I'm unsatisfied with this Chapter. Like I couldn't convey a message as loudly as I had wanted. No matter how much I edited, this fact wouldn't change.

But, oh well. I might come back and edit it on a later date. But, it won't change the plot it any way.

**Translations and other Features**

Tsuchi no Kuni: Earth Country

That's all for now, folks. Please review and tell me what you think of this boring chapter.

Adios,

_**Alban55**_


	17. Subordinato

**raveman2**: Not too many. I plan on having most of the Konoha shinobi go to Soul Society, but i will have a couple make some guest appearances as Hollows. Who it will be, I won't say.

**Darth Void Sage of the Force**: Well, judging by what Hitsugaya said, it seems like the average Vasto Lorde is stronger than the average Gotei 13 Captain. However, an average Vasto Lorde won't be any competition to someone like, say Yamamoto.

**Digman14**: Well, there is **Kage no Naruto. . .**

Not too many questions this time, though there might've been more if the damn site wasn't having so many issues lately. *rages*. That's partly the reason why this chapter is so damn late. A mixture of technical difficulties (for me, at least.), and a very bad case of writer's block. I burnout if I update too many chapters in a short period of time, so I will take a little extra time for the next update so I can recover my wits.

A cookie for those who caught my reference about two-thirds of the way through the Chapter! I just had to put that in there when I realized that Naruto's attitude and speech was leaning towards this guy's.

And lastly, please review this stuff!

* * *

Chapter 17: Subordinato

Naruto didn't know what to think when he noticed that lone figure standing under the potent gaze of the moonlight. It was obvious that it was the one who was radiating the powerful reiatsu, but Naruto strangely didn't feel anything towards it. It wasn't so weak that he would be able to finish a fight quickly, nor so strong that he wouldn't be able to move without suffocating.

If anything, it was around the level of _his_ reiatsu. And that usually indicated a tough fight.

The silhouette's gaze was clearly upon him, but Naruto had a hard time locking eyes with the other Hollow. He noticed it stood on two legs, was about seven feet tall, and had a helmet mask that had two long points sticking upwards out of each side, almost like horns.

But, those weren't the most prominent features. Out of the Hollow's back he could clearly see large, velvety wings that sprouted upwards. It gave the creature a demonic visage, even though Naruto couldn't clearly see the entire body.

Naruto would've thought it was a Vasto Lorde due to his upright position, if the reiatsu signature didn't tell him otherwise.

Naruto took his eyes off the figure for merely a split-second, but in that time the silhouette had disappeared, and all that Naruto viewed was the Hueco Mundo crescent moon that the Hollow was once standing in front of.

Naruto's superior hearing picked up a whoosh of cold air over to the right, and the Adjuchas strained his neck to order to not be caught off guard any longer. He spotted the figure standing next to a rock a distance away, it's back turned to him. Clearly, it believed him to be easy prey.

Naruto grinned wildly; it wouldn't do for him to be underestimated. Dropping the mask on his reiatsu, he let the orange energy flow fully from his body, unveiling a thin orange layer of the stuff that went fully around his body.

The figure stirred a little bit, and Naruto grinned even wider when he noted that he had the Hollow's attention. It was a good reason the other Hollow was paying attention, as Naruto's full reiatsu seemed to be slightly greater than its own.

The Hollow finally turned around to face him, and even though its face was covered by a mask, Naruto could see that its green eyes held nothing but contempt for him. It released a little more reiatsu, so that it became even with Naruto's.

The orange and green energy lit up the night sky, each battling for dominance over the other. And, while Naruto's orange reiatsu was wild and emotional, the other Hollow's green was cold and robotic.

Naruto was finally able to see more of the Hollow's pronounced features. In addition to the wings and horns, it was covered in a black fur that went around most of its body, significantly thinning as it went down the creature's legs. It had clawed feet, looking much like bird talons, yet they were much bulkier. There was a thin, whip like tail that protruded from the Hollow's back side, and a flat, bat-like mask that exposed its poisonous, green eyes.

Naruto hissed in pleasure, running his tongue across his hideous, yellow teeth. The other Hollow looked greatly disgusted by such an act, and its expression told that. Naruto kicked up the sand, feeling restless and wantonly shaking with delight.

And then, it happened.

Naruto sprung into action immediately after he did that, his red body darting all over the sand in a zigzag pattern. His obnoxious laughter followed the Hollow wherever he zoomed, and it intensified when he was about to close in on the other Adjuchas.

Much to his surprise, the other Hollow was ready for him. It stoically observed his movements, and after seeing that they were at a manageable speed, broke his guard fluidly with a sharp jab directly below his Hollow hole.

Naruto's tough skin was the only thing that prevented him from being impaled, but the attack still stirred up quite a bit of blood. The Adjuchas backed off after the successful counterattack by his opponent, coughing up some blood onto the ground as he did.

"Trash. With a head-on strategy like that, it doesn't matter how strong your reiatsu is..." The Hollow spoke for the first time, and his voice was just as contemptuous as his gaze. Naruto sneered at the comment.

"You probably believe in yourself so confidently because you're an Adjuchas, and can go through that type of battle strategy. However, all of the other Adjuchas in Hueco Mundo have gone through just as many trials as you, and can thoroughly anticipate and react to such behavior." he droned on.

He ignored the fact that Naruto was rudely mocking his mouth movements.

"Blah, blah, blah. You really talk a lot for someone who comes off as stoic. You think I give a shit about what you think about my battle strategies? You're an even bigger bitch than you let on." Naruto retorted.

The Hollow merely looked at him in distaste.

"Oh, don't throw a massive bitchfit. You'll ruin the fun of this fight!" Naruto roared. "Don't you at least want to die having some fun, batboy?" he asked, his loud voice creating a splitting headache for the other Hollow.

"Oh, please. There is no enjoyment to be held in battle. Or anything for that matter. All that exists is emptiness, in battle and in life. There is no meaning or purpose to anything, and our lives as Hollows are living proof of that." he said emotionlessly, raising his black claw in preparation to fight.

"You're quite the little emo, aren't you. Maybe I should beat into your head the meaning of battle, and the exhilaration that comes with it." Naruto said, his smile dampened somewhat from his opponent's depressing words.

The bat Hollow looked a little insulted by the previous comment, and drew the fox Hollow's attention by doing a quick little hand motion that made it seem like he was going to attack with them. But, that wasn't the case, as while Naruto was watching the hypnotic movement of his hands, he shot his hidden tail out like a whip.

The thin tail almost caught Naruto by the face, but the keyword here was almost. Naruto's superb hearing caught the whistling of the appendage as it zipped towards him, and at the last second he broke his trance and sidestepped to avoid the attack.

Naruto hissed in joy, and reached out to grab the tail before the other Hollow could retract it. He was far too slow, as the bat Hollow didn't retract the tail, but instead used it to attack.

In the very short frame of time, he wrapped his tail around Naruto's front leg, causing the fox Hollow to trip up when he attempted to move around. While on the ground, the Adjuchas swung his tail with a surprising amount of strength, flinging Naruto over to the right towards a large boulder.

Naruto smashed into the rock, but minimized the damage by springing his free legs against it. However, it didn't completely eliminate any damage, and there still was a small crater in the rock surface where Naruto had smashed into it.

He felt a trail of blood run down from his forehead underneath the mask, and tasted the coppery substance enter his mouth. The bat Hollow was standing around fifty feet away, looking smug from his recent successful attack.

Naruto moved a piece of rock that was currently holding him down, and grunted in pain. His thick skin would protect him from being defeated like that, but he'd be damned if that didn't hurt at least a little.

"La Curva..." he whispered to himself, after he sure was sure that the building reiatsu on the end of one of his tails was hidden from view. He released the familiar attack, but his opponent back-handed it away as if it were nothing.

Naruto growled, did he just hit a tempered mass of reiatsu with his bare claw?

"_His skin must be just as tough as mine..._"

It was infuriating to see his attack batted away so easily, and was to learn that La Curva was useless for the entire remainder of the fight. But Naruto didn't have time to dwell on this, as the bat Hollow was preparing to attack again.

Naruto sped away from the green Cero that would've engulfed him, and appeared at a position directly towards his opponent's right. He thrust his cruel claws outward in a stabbing motion, but the bat skillfully crouched below and grasped Naruto's arm.

The Hollow then placed his black, clawed fingers centimeters away from Naruto's face... and charged up another Cero. The fox Hollow avoided that swiftly, and for a few seconds fox and bat were trapped in a bastardized version of tug-of-war.

The bat Hollow finally gained the upper hand, and delivered a powerful kick to Naruto's face that broke the hold. The finesse of the kick allowed it to land in a vital spot, and Naruto almost felt his mask crack underneath the pressure.

Naruto kept his balance however, as he slid backwards through the sand. He thrust his arm out, and invariably shot off one of his orange Ceros. The bat Hollow was surprised by the sudden attack, and a cloud of dust and smoke arose as it made contact.

Naruto stopped sliding, and fell to one of his knees. Panting heavily, he looked at his slightly singed paws with annoyance. He put a little bit too much juice in that one, but it looked like he heavily injured his opponent.

A small rustling noise brought Naruto out of his reverie. The dust was clearing fast, and Naruto could tell that the bat was far from being defeated. In fact, it he weren't so stoic, Naruto didn't doubt that the Hollow would be very angry right about now.

The silhouette of the bat Hollow was now fully on its feet, and it didn't take the time for the dust to clear completely, as it rocketed out in the open, using its wings for the first time. This display caught Naruto off-guard, and he was forced to avoid a powerful jab that would have no doubt killed him.

He rolled across the sand clumsily, dragging himself to his feet to match the airborne Hollow. Naruto blocked two punches and a kick, while parrying yet another jab to the cheek. This time, his claws connected with the bat's right shoulder, yet the three shallow gashes caused only minimal wounds.

"You trash..." said the Hollow with contempt, not even flinching from the wound. He delivered a few light claw scratches that Naruto avoided, but then whipped Naruto across the back with his tail.

The bat Hollow closed his eyes as Naruto went skidding again, and placed his hand over his wound. He left it there for a few seconds, and when he released it the wound had already completely healed.

"What? How did you do that?" asked Naruto in awe.

The bat Hollow blinked at the question, surely he couldn't be serious?

"High-speed regeneration. It's something I've developed recently with my evolution into an Adjuchas, yet it's a hallmark ability throughout Hueco Mundo. Tell me, how long have you been a Hollow?" he asked, keen on learning the reason behind Naruto's obliviousness.

Naruto was thrown off-guard by the odd question.

"Oh... eight or nine years, I guess..." said Naruto wistfully.

The bat Hollow would've facepalmed if that wasn't out of his character.

"You're telling me... you've been a Hollow for the same amount of time I have, and you haven't developed or even _heard_ of high-speed regeneration. You really need to work on your information gathering, trash." he said.

"Hey, three of those years I was stuck in a Las Noches jail cell rotting to death! I didn't exactly have time to gather information!" said Naruto hotly, perturbed by the other Hollow's insults. He used Sonido to appear right next to his opponent, and with his anger intensifying his reiatsu, delivered a nasty gash to the bat Hollow's face.

A little piece of mask broke off, but the wound was quickly sealing up. Naruto, however, would give his opponent no time to recover. He jabbed his back paw into the bat's torso, and slashed again at its face.

The other Hollow was grunting in effort, and eventually found the skirmish to be not working in his favor. He broke off from the rabid Hollow, coming to a standstill a safe distance away from Naruto.

His anger exhausted from the attack, Naruto turned around and laughed, making his opponent wonder if he had truly lost his sanity. Nevertheless, the short break the Hollow had taken allowed him to heal from his wounds.

Naruto did an obnoxious little twirl, before he was ready to resume attacking. Clearly, the upper hand he was gaining in the battle was causing him to return to his normal, giddy self. But, his opponent still had a few tricks up his sleeve. And with Naruto's current state of mind, he would be likely to fall for them.

The fox was pressuring the bat with powerful, yet reckless blows, laughing insanely while he did so. The bat Hollow was grunting and panting as he moved backwards, desperately seeking any opportunity to get an attack in.

"Who's the one who said frontal attacks don't work? Huh!" Naruto yelled, his psychotic voice causing a stir within the bat's mind. The other Hollow glared back severely at Naruto, trying to whip out his tail to attack Naruto.

The fox Hollow kicked the thin tail while it was in the air, causing it to fall limp to the ground. The Hollow was slightly disoriented from his thwarted attack, and Naruto used this to his advantage.

Pausing, he put his wrists together so his paws were opposite to each other, then thrust them forward and slashed horizontally along his opponent's torso. Like a hideous flower, gash marks bloomed outwards along the Hollow's torso, leaving six complementary gashes when the deed was done. Unlike last time, these wounds were as deep as can be, and showed when the bat Hollow fell backwards, coughing up blood.

Naruto was on him again, attempted to stab straight through the Hollow's head with one of his ankle spikes. The bat Hollow managed to roll out-of-the-way of the attack, causing Naruto to stab nothing more than sand.

The bat fired another green Cero, which Naruto ducked out of way.

"Cero! Cero! I like ceros, but is that all you know how to do?" he asked.

Naruto waved his paws outwards.

"Try something new! I can't get off if you don't add in a little variety!"

The bat Hollow ignored him, and fired another two Ceros from his claws, which Naruto fairly easily avoided. He continued firing Ceros for another few seconds, trying to hit Naruto as he rushed towards him while avoiding the Ceros.

_Clang!_

Claw met claw as the bat Hollow parried Naruto's claws with his own. Naruto attempted the same attack a second time, only the result was the same. Now, fox and bat were locked in a deadly standstill, two of their claws locked with each other.

The bat was the one to break it off this time, hopping in the air and performing a spinning kick that its lithe size allowed it to perform. Naruto caught the foot with his right front paw, and threw the bat off him with a sturdy push.

The other Adjuchas wasn't that phased though, as he recovered himself while flying in mid-air. Taking time to adopt a new strategy, the bat took off up into the air, stopping to hover around fifty feet above Naruto.

Naruto looked livid at this display.

"H-Hey! Get yer bitchass down here, fucker. Don't tell me you're just gonna camp out up there all day!" yelled Naruto childishly. The bat said nothing, and all Naruto could hear was the flapping of its wings.

"Fuck you, then! No one screws with me like this..." whispered Naruto, his voice deathly silent yet holding an intense pitch of hatred behind its tone. He hung his head down, stumbling in his stance.

"I'll show you... I'll show **ALL** of you motherfuckers! Here's what I say to **THAT!"** he roared, and released an incredibly powerful Cero from his mouth. The orange beam spread over an area twice the size of his normal one, and it had intense anger flowing in it.

The bat Hollow swooped in and divebombed, caught off guard by Naruto's hair-trigger temper. For an agonizing minute, he flew around in a circle, dodging Cero after Cero as they lit up the sky in a furious orange light show.

"Fly away, little moth! **FLY!"** Naruto roared, launching yet another Cero. The bat avoided that one by flying around a quartz tree that the Cero obliterated. The bat Hollow grunted as the energy still managed to singe him slightly, and cast a wary eye down at the Hollow who had apparently completely lost it.

"_He hasn't managed to hit me with a Cero yet, which means I be completely fine if I just remain up here and avoid his attacks. He's being completely ruled by his emotions at the moment, so I'll-" _The bat Hollow's train of thought was cut off when out of nowhere Naruto appeared in front of him.

"WHAT!" he yelled, before Naruto delivered to him a devastating slash across the torso. The bat Hollow coughed up more blood, before Naruto shot out his paw and kicked the Hollow in his wound.

The bat Hollow was sent careening down to Earth, red blood flying into the air in torrents. He slammed face first into a giant rock wall a distance away, and weakly lied there, hoping that his high-speed regeneration would kick in fast enough.

Unfortunately for him, that wasn't what happened, because Naruto flashed into existence in front of him in a matter of seconds. The fox hovered over the other Hollow like a fierce, tribal God. His hot anger had given way to cold rage, and the bat was left wondering if his trivial actions had really angered him that much. If that was the case, then this Hollow... was an anomaly.

Naruto seemed to realize that he would heal in time, so before that could happen, he picked up the slightly smaller Hollow by the head, holding the limp being at arm's length and scrutinizing him closely.

The other Hollow grit his teeth, becoming very wary of what was to come.

Naruto didn't say a word, no, didn't even make a sound as he smashed the poor Hollow's face into the rock... over and over again. Every time he did it he thrust harder, and every time he did it his victim bled more.

Yet, through all of this, he never made a sound. Not even a noise of pleasure came from Naruto's mouth, and all that could be heard was the low grunting coming from the brutalized Hollow.

The grunts calmed him, however. Soon, all his feelings of anger dissipated, and the familiar calm mind settled over his entire being again. Only his muscle reflex kept him bashing the other Hollow against the wall. Naruto's mind, on the other hand... was working rationally again.

Naruto's bashing went to a sudden halt, and the young Hollow dropped his opponent roughly to fall into the sand. His eyes were completely blank, and he continued staring off into space for another thirty seconds.

The cogs in Naruto's mind seemed to be working at an extra great performance today, as a ludicrous smile made its way onto his face when he came onto one of his most brilliant ideas to date.

His head creaked and turned over to his right, where he set his malicious gaze on the downed Hollow who was just now crawling to lie on his back. The Hollow caught Naruto's gaze again, and vaguely wondered what he had in mind now.

The Hollow didn't have to wait to be answered, as Naruto placed his sharp claws at his neck, and didn't retract them. It didn't matter what miracles high-speed regeneration could perform now, one strike there and he was dead.

The Hollow's breathing increased slightly, and Naruto grinned at the fact that he had managed to get under his opponent's skin at least a little.

"Don't move. I've just given you a chance to escape from this predicament alive. It wouldn't do for you to make any sudden moves, now would it?" he threatened.

The bat Hollow sighed slightly.

"What do you want?"

"A common conception of a hostage. They believe that their captors always want something. But, what I want isn't what's at stake here. Tell me, my fellow Adjuchas, do you want to see the sunset?" he asked.

"I don't really under-" the bat Hollow started.

"What I mean is, do you want to see a change in the drab, empty lifestyle that you hold in such _high regard?_" said Naruto, his voice laced with sarcasm. The bat Hollow's green eyes widened at that, trying to wrap his mind around what it was implying.

"The meaning in you life that was so wrongly taken away from you; do you want it back? I can give you meaning to your life, my fellow Adjuchas. I am going to take this world by storm with my power, but I can't do it alone. I need a suitable lieutenant, a right-hand man, if you will. Well, would you be interested in being the champion to a future king of Hueco Mundo and eventual destroying of the Shinigami?" Naruto asked.

The bat Hollow's eyes widened even further, to the point that there was a great deal of emotion on the normally stoic Hollow's face.

"Destroy the Shinigami? You must be insane. Such a task would require a great deal of power, far beyond something you or I could-"

"I'm going to do it! With my armies, we will crush Seireitei! It doesn't sound like too bad of a deal, does it? As my second-in-command, you would have almost complete control over them, not to mention the other denizens of my kingdom. I'm giving you the chance to lord over other Hollows..." Naruto said, trying to sweeten the deal.

"So why don't you do yourself a favor and take it. I can guarantee you will not regret it..." he finished.

The bat Hollow eyed Naruto thoughtfully, from his posture to his expression and to his words. Whatever the case, all of those seemed genuine. He wasn't lying, his eyes could see that much. He truly believed he could fulfill all of this.

"Hmph..." the bat Hollow started; his tone was now clipped. "If you believe you can win me over with promises of grandeur and social status, then you are sorely mistaken. My empty heart will not respond to those things at this point in time."

Naruto grimaced at the emo words.

"However, I have long grown tired of this lifestyle, and if you believe you can bring meaning to this Hollow, then I am tempted to accept your offer. And despite my demeanor, I am far from fond of the Shinigami, and I would not be sad to see them be destroyed."

Naruto grinned; he clearly liked where this was going.

The bat Hollow mulled the thought over once again, closing his eyes for roughly a minute before speaking again.

"Very well. I accept the position of your second-in-command and your subordinate. I swear that I shall follow you until the day I die, and perform any orders you may have without question, as long as you give my life some sense of meaning." the other Adjuchas recited.

Naruto removed his claws from the other Hollow's throat, before doing a raucous little celebratory jig.

The bat Hollow massaged his neck while climbing to his feet, his high-speed regeneration already taking care of his previous injuries inflicted by his new lord. Already he was wondering what he had gotten himself into.

"Well, my fellow Adjuchas, I hope you realize that you are now fully in the service of the future Hueco Mundo king- Naruto Uzumaki! For starters, you must tell me the name of my second-in-command and first vassal!" he shouted.

The bat Hollow looked at him, his stoic expression on his face again. His new king was staring at him intensely, like he just couldn't get over the fact that he had a subordinate now. The Hollow closed his eyes and cleared his throat, and opened his mouth to speak two words.

"Ulquiorra Cifer..."

* * *

Bam! Done! It's another short one, unfortunately, but I found this place to be a good cut-off point.

I bet you all knew that it was Ulquiorra, didn't you. His appearance and mannerisms all matched, and the only thing I didn't give was his name. But I wanted to reveal his name in a formal introduction like at the end of the Chapter.

Like I said before, the next update to this Chapter will take a little more time than usual to update, but I hope you'll enjoy this current update in its fullest, despite the agonizing lateness. So please review!

Happy Trails,

**_Alban55_**


	18. Criatura de Las Profundidades

**Ciel Moony**: Can't spoil the story, sorry.

**malefan**: Um, I don't know. I wasn't planning on putting Juugo in this story at all, let alone turn him into a Hollow.

**ijpowers92**: I'm showing it, because there's a very pivotal Chapter in this story that I can't pull off without showing how Naruto formed his kingdom in full detail.

**NoGoodNamesLeft**: Naruto won't necessarily be learning it, but I do remember that Ulquiorra explained that as an Arrancar he was the only one who didn't drop his high-speed regeneration for greater power.

**Xeiden**: He's only attacked Konoha twice, and the second time he did was when Seireitei gained the information on him.

**The Last Rising of the Phoenix**: I'm not really seeing it. They may both be focused on revenge, but that's the only comparison I see. Not to mention, Naruto's happy most of the time while Sasuke is never happy.

**Seimeisamarian**: The story will follow canon events, but how much it will I can't reveal.

It seems that only one person got my Bioshock reference last Chapter. A lot of people seemed to make a connection that it was a Batman reference due to how Naruto's been acting. So congratulations, Mr. Anonymous Guy!

One more thing, like I said on my profile, I am not posting any more update times for stories, because I feel rushed to get this out on time, and the quality suffers as a result.

* * *

Chapter 18: Criatura de las Profundidades

He didn't know what was running through his mind when he pledged full alligience to the fox Hollow that had soundly defeated him. Maybe it was just a spur of the moment process?

If he weren't so stoic, he would've chuckled to himself right there. Him, acting on something based upon the spur of the moment? He thought himself more logical... more rational than that.

Somehow, justifications for that decision didn't seem very convincing. He could say it was for the idea of self-preservation, but he would be only be lying himself. He had been waiting for something like this to happen for a long time, where he could actually do something other than wander around and feed. Feeding wasn't anything he liked doing in the first place.

His new king had removed his claws from his throat the second he agreed, and Ulquiorra wondered if his new king was far too trusting. It wouldn't do for him to be like that, or else he could be assassinated at any time.

While his new king did his ridiculous little jig, Ulquiorra gracefully got to his feet, his stoic expression never leaving his face as he brushed the sand off himself. He decided to leave his previous thoughts in the back of his mind, knowing that as the loser he had no right to think such things.

Soon, the air was filled with nothing but the raucous laughter of Naruto, who still couldn't over the fact that he had a vassal now. Little animals scurried out above the surface at the noise, and Ulquiorra felt an oncoming headache not too far away.

It was a full minute before Naruto finally stopped, and turned his attention onto the bat Hollow.

"Okay then, Ulquiorra, since you are now champion to me, Naruto Uzumaki, it's only fitting that I fill you on the situation, and on our plans for the future. I ran into one of my distant ancestors from the human world, also a powerful king of Hueco Mundo, and he told me to become a Vasto Lorde before rising my kingdom. But, I feel that wouldn't be to our advantage, as our territory could get snatched while I'm evolving."

Ulquiorra nodded.

"Tell me, Ulquiorra... have you ever heard of an ocean in Hueco Mundo?" Naruto asked.

The bat Hollow in front of him narrowed his eyes. He had never heard about anything like that.

"You haven't? No matter, it exists, and it's the place where we're going to begin building our resources and our reserves. Valicav mentioned that it was far, far to the east, and it's going to take several months to get there as a result. And even when we get there, it's going to be a while before we find the designated spot." he paused for a moment, to stare across at Ulquiorra.

"Burn this image into your mind. From what he described, the place is an enormous plateau, with a series of cave systems in it. I'm not sure what he wants me to do with those caves, but I doubt he'd recommend this place if they didn't have something to do with it..."

The fox Adjuchas turned around, walking away slightly from his new subordinate. Ulquiorra, however, just remained rooted into the sand, unmoving Something appeared to be troubling him.

"How close..." Ulquiorra began, and Naruto slowed to a stop, yet didn't turn around to address the bat.

"... do you think you are to Vasto Lorde class?" he asked carefully.

A tense silence arose between the two Hollow, and Ulquiorra wondered if he had asked the wrong question. It was a necessary one though, because a king that couldn't rise to Vasto Lorde would be less than ideal in their world.

The silence hung in the air for over thirty seconds, and after that was when Naruto whirled around to face Ulquiorra, a strange, unreadable look in his eyes. He held his front, right paw in front of his face, vaguely staring at the center of it with a misty, wondrous expression on his face.

"I don't know..." he sighed. "Every time I eat a Hollow I feel power growing inside me, but it's so slight that it might as well be nothing," he said, looking up from his palm to stare at Ulquiorra.

"I've been an Adjuchas for five years now, and whenever I eat I never get that intoxicating rush of power that I received when I was a regular Hollow. It hasn't diminished my confidence in becoming one, but I think I'm starting to feel the difficulty level of such a feat."

Ulquiorra nodded. As the same type of Hollow, he was going through a similar situation.

"Your power increase isn't decreasing at all. What you have experienced is just a part of life. If one is bound to repeat a process over and over again, it's only natural that the benefits reaped will become lackluster over time. The only way to break that process is to go through a new experience while doing so."

"I'm not sure that's right, Ulquiorra. My love of killing and destruction hasn't diminished at all since the day of my Hollowfication. If your passion for something is great enough, then it won't get boring no matter how much you do it." Naruto said with an air of finality.

Ulquiorra grunted. There seemed to be a big difference in opinion between them. Whatever though, he was doing something new by following this guy in the first place, so maybe his dull life would be granted some reprieve.

Naruto once again turned away from the bat Hollow, and this time he picked up his pace a little bit.

"We have a long trip ahead of us, Ulquiorra, so we'd better get going know. Get used to walking, 'cause it's what you're going to be doing for the next couple months. And one more thing, keep on the lookout for other Hollows. If you believe we can use them, don't hesitate to let me know." Naruto called back to Ulquiorra.

The bat Hollow fell into step with his new king, his talons making it more difficult to walk on the sand than Naruto's claws. Eventually, he opted to fly, and the sight of a ground-bound Adjuchas and his airborne partner could be seen throughout the sands.

"Naruto-sama, what are we going to do once we get there? I would imagine the area would need some scouting, just to confirm that it's free of threats." Ulquiorra stated while they were a few minutes into their journey.

Naruto grunted in agreement.

"For starters, we need to a suitable place on the plateau that will act as a command centre while we're forming the preparing to rising my kingdom. Once that's done, we'll have to scout out the area and make sure it's free of any major threats. We can work out further details once we take care of those two things."

The two moved on in silence for a few more seconds, before Naruto spoke.

"Also, knock it off with the "sama" shit. Just hearing my name addressed like that makes me wanna hurl..." The fox pantomimed to add emphasis.

Ulquiorra would've rolled his eyes at the lewd behavior, if he didn't know better. All the while, in his head he was beginning to think that this is going to be a long, long, life.

* * *

_Four months later. . . _

"S-Stop it, please..." wheezed a blue, humanoid Adjuchas.

"Stop? Why would I want to do that, when the fun's only beginning!?" cackled Naruto, who was currently sitting on top of the downed Adjuchas, his brutal claws stabbing through his opponent's upper back.

Naruto twisted the claws a little, causing a gasp of pain to come from the blue Hollow. Slowly but surely, Naruto increased the intensity of the Hollow's pain, and this caused Naruto to emit a strange, foreign sound from his throat. It sounded like a cross between a giggle and a moan, disturbingly enough.

"More! Show me some more pain, bitch!" he yelled, dragging his claws downward inside the Hollow's back. The tough sinew and muscle was no match for Naruto's powerful claws, and when Naruto roughly ripped his claws out of the Hollow's back, there was an enormous, gaping slash wound that ran all the way down its torso.

The Hollow screamed when Naruto yanked his claws out, but that only fueled Naruto more. Laughing manically, Naruto stabbed the Hollow over and over at an incredibly fast rate, laughing and whooping as the wounds became deeper, and the viscous, red blood splattered all over the place, much of the time on him.

"Naruto, what are you doing?" asked a voice from behind, which made Naruto drop what he was doing and turn around. Behind him stood Ulquiorra, who in the four months that had passed developed a more tired and haggard voice. Yet despite all that, his disposition had generally improved.

"Oh hey, Ulquiorra. I didn't see you coming. I'm just having.. a little..." he paused, and tore the Hollow's arm straight from its socket.

"..._fun!_" he finished in a grunt.

Ulquiorra sighed. It seemed he would never get used to Naruto's behavior. It was emotional and volatile, the almost complete opposite of his own, and that made it difficult to work with. It wasn't so much his brutal nature that bothered him. No, it was the fact that he would randomly go off on a killing tangent, even when there were more important things to be done.

The worst part about it had to be that they could happen at any time, even at the most unexpected or inopportune moments.

And, that would explain the poor sap underneath Naruto who was currently in pieces.

"Should you really be doing this, Naruto? Aren't we supposed to be attracting people to your sphere of influence, and not be ripping your potential vassals to shreds? That's a perfectly good Adjuchas right there, one that could've been a suitable guard in your army."

"Ah, come on, Ulquiorra. I think I deserve to have a little fun," whined Naruto childishly.

Ulquiorra frowned. Their relationship must have looked odd at times. It looked more like a conversation between equals than a conversation between superior and subordinate. The fact that he didn't address his future king by an honorific cemented that view.

The bat Hollow reached below, feeling the sand of the desert. His brow furrowed, there was something off with the consistency of the sand. It seemed slightly heavier than he remembered. He brought his hand back up to his face, scrutinizing it carefully. The sand fell through his fingers, and Ulquiorra saw a brown material left over, one that felt slightly softer than the white sand of Hueco Mundo.

It was dirt. What he was holding was the familiar Earthan substance of dirt. There shouldn't be any dirt in Hueco Mundo, unless...

Come to think of it, as Ulquiorra looked around, he noticed that they hadn't seen any quartz trees for miles, and the giant dunes reminiscent of the Hueco Mundo desert had disappeared. It could only mean one thing...

The seemingly perpetual desert was receding... and giving way to a new, unfamiliar type of landscape. They were getting close, and the thousands of miles they have traveled were finally starting to pay off.

"Naruto, I think we're getting close..." he told his king. Those few words were all it took to jolt Naruto from his reverie, and make him focus completely on the situation at hand.

"Are you sure?" he asked, all serious.

"Yes, I noticed that the consistency of the desert we've been travelling is changing, and it should be no more than fifty miles before the desert completely recedes into another type of landscape. After that, however, I'm not sure how long it will be until we reach water." Ulquiorra explained.

Naruto let a satisfied grin seep onto his face, and he got up from his downed opponent before sinking his teeth into it, savoring the fresh meat he always got from his fellow Adjuchas. Satisfied with the food, he turned to Ulquiorra and wiped a dribble of blood from his lip.

"Should we continue moving then? I'm getting jittery just thinking about how close we are." he said. Ulquiorra nodded, and the two of them took off into the desert, leaving behind a ripped apart carcass that would be devoured by the weaker Hollows of the world.

True to Ulquiorra's word, the desert was in fact receding right before their eyes. About six hours later, the white sand that they both came to know and love had completely disappeared, and in its place was the brown, earthy dirt that now could be seen for many miles.

Still, there was no water in sight, and the atmosphere didn't change its humidity enough to warrent the feel of an ocean. The two of them were atop of a high cliff, as they could see a great valley below them, and five rounded mountains beyond the valley that obscured any view they could have of an ocean beyond.

The two didn't speak to each other in spite of the new view, but there was a mutual understanding that hung with them in the air. Naruto turned his head and nodded at Ulquiorra, before bounding off the side of the cliff and into the valley.

His agile legs allowed him to reach the bottom unharmed, and he turned around to see Ulquiorra casually flying down towards him. He allowed the bat Hollow to descend without disturbing him, and set his eyes upon a peculiar sight.

"Well, would you look at that?" he said as Ulquiorra finally reached the ground. The bat Hollow, perplexed by Naruto's behavior, walked up to see him kneeling down before something. He appeared to be analyzing it carefully.

It was green, and was rising out of the dirt in an upwards motion.

"A plant," Ulquiorra said simply, the word sounding foreign coming out of his mouth. It was small, barely a little sprout in a sea of dirt, but it gave them proof that plants _could_ be grown in Hueco Mundo.

"Yeah... a plant. And not the only one, either. Take a look up ahead..." Naruto replied.

Ulquiorra looked forward, seeing plant life become more and more numerous the farther the valley went. Eventually, the vegetation spawned a thin layer of tall grass, something that could be a hiding place for Hollows.

"This place is much more dangerous than the desert, Naruto. The terrain will give Hollows numerous places to hide, such as the grass and other vegetation. We should prepare to be ambushed while we're here." stated Ulquiorra.

"Perfect. We can use the chance to get information from some of the locals when we capture one!" Naruto said, a little too loudly for Ulquiorra's tastes.

Despite this, Naruto was already continuing across the valley, and Ulquiorra was forced to quickly follow. Eventually, they did reach some tall grass about ten miles into the valley. It was about five feet in height, and would be the perfect place for weaker Hollows to hide.

Both Naruto and Ulquiorra picked up some rustling in the grass a few minutes into it, and were quickly aware of some Hollow who was apparently trying to be sneaky. Naruto gave Ulquiorra a nod, and the bat Hollow stealthily flew over to the area where the rustling came from.

It happened again, and as it did, Ulquiorra pounced on the section of grass. There came some sounds of fighting, a grunt of pain, and finally a couple loud thuds that signified the end of the scuffle.

A small, gopher-like Hollow was thrown from his hiding place a few seconds later, falling with yet another thud at Naruto's feet. The poor Hollow looked up fearfully at the scary-looking fox Adjuchas towering over his fallen form, and he fearfully attempted to hop straight back into the tall grass.

He would never get the chance to, as Naruto's strong front paw grasped the Hollow's neck forcefully. The Adjuchas whipped the gopher Hollow back around, slamming the abused Hollow into the dirt ground.

Ulquiorra was coming back to his position at Naruto's side, and the gopher was wondering whether or not he would get out of this alive. The Hollow's grip on his throat tightly ever so slightly, and it stopped his jittering through pain.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Easy there, young Hollow. I'm not here to hurt ya... _much_," Naruto leered at the frightened Hollow. The gopher shook his head frantically, and Ulquiorra almost felt pity for the poor soul. Key word being almost.

"We're new around these parts, you see. So we need a local Hollow to tell us all about the area here. And that local Hollow is going to be you, got it?" said Naruto, in a tone that left no room for arguments.

The pinned Hollow nodded frantically, opting a grin from Naruto.

"Good, I'm glad we have an understanding here. Now, the first thing you're going to tell me is this. With this type of terrain, is it common to get ambushed by other Hollows here? If so, what level of Hollow are we talking about?" asked Naruto.

"W-Well," the gopher Hollow began, speaking for the first time. "T-The only a-ambushes you'll get a-around here is f-from H-Hollows such as m-myself, who don't h-have the combat c-capability to s-survive in H-Hueco M-Mundo without ambushing." he paused, allowing the information to sink in.

"I-It's r-rare for M-Menos class H-Hollows to come out h-here, w-which is why I'm s-surprised to see you g-gentlemen here. Most of us in the v-valley never even v-visit the real w-world, nor have we r-really dined on human s-souls..." he finished the last part with barely a squeak.

"Oh? Really?"

"Y-Y-Yes! Though, t-that only a-applies to this v-valley. B-Beyond those m-mountains, you'll f-find high l-level H-Hollows in s-spades!" he said, raising a shaky claw to point at the mountain range in the distance.

Naruto and Ulquiorra's interests were piqued.

"What lies beyond those mountains?" asked Naruto.

"You m-must be d-desert Hollows if you d-don't know what's beyond t-those m-mountains. B-Beyond those m-mountains, there is a g-great o-ocean, as far as the e-eye can see. Beyond t-that, there's a-another c-continent. At l-least there i-is a-according to l-legend. I don't k-know a-anyone who's a-actually been t-there..."

Naruto and Ulquiorra looked at each other, a knowing look both appearing in their eyes.

"It seems that's all the information we're going to need..." stated Ulquiorra.

"S-So, are you g-gonna let me g-go, n-now?" asked the gopher Hollow, regretting his words as soon as they spilled from his mouth.

Naruto passed one more glance over the gopher, a manic look entered his slanted eyes.

"_Huh?_" he asked quietly, though the gopher knew that as soon as he said that, he was doomed.

Quick as a flash, Naruto slashed his claws horizontally, lopping off the gopher's head before it even realized its own demise. Naruto wasn't satisfied with a kill of that calibre, but he would let it slide for now.

The valley and mountains didn't prove that difficult of a trek for the two Adjuchas. They ran into few ambushes, and when they did happen, the gopher's words ran true when they realized they were being attacked by nothing but weak Hollows.

A few days later, as they rounded the mountain they had chosen to climb, they saw it.

It wasn't beautiful by any stretch of the imagination. The perpetual night of Hueco Mundo gave off a view of murky, black water, that they could see even from their distance. The surrounding land was more appealing to the eye. A few actual trees were growing, and they could tell that there would be more of them the closer they got. The dirt was fully blanketing by grass, and not the tall kind they had seen in the valley. Some rocks were dotted across the landscape, but they couldn't see the designated area that Valicav had pointed them too.

Despite that, Naruto knew that this was the perfect place to set up his kingdom. He felt more at home here than he ever had in the desert, and the terrain would ensure a better livelihood than that of the desert.

He could see a herd of Gillian far off in the distance, and Naruto knew that the gopher's words about this place were true. Higher-level Hollows existed here, and they would have to watch their back.

After around twenty miles of travelling, the two Hollows reached the coast, scanning the area for any signs of their destination. Naruto placed his hand underneath the water, feeling the consistency of the ocean.

His hand hit a jagged rock at the bottom, and he overall felt that it wasn't a pleasant sensation. It wasn't cool and clear like water in the human world was. Rather, it was thick and oily, like the whole ocean was going through an oil spill.

He vaguely noticed Ulquiorra fire his Cero at an attacking Hollow, and he turned his attention back to the situation at hand. Valicav said that the plateau was right next to the coast, and it was fairly big, so they should be able to spot it quickly. But as they looked around, he could see nothing but flat coastline for miles.

The two walked along the coastline for miles, trying to point out any signs of the damn plateau while fighting off Hollow attacks. The coastline stretched several hundred miles before turning into a high mountain, and Naruto and Ulquiorra went through the unfortunate, time-wasting experience that made them realize that it wasn't to the south.

But, when they did finally find it about fifty miles to the north of their initial position, all the previous agitation they had melted right off. It was enormous, and rose off of the landscape like a high shelf, and Naruto felt a sense of longing for it. He had finally found it, the site of his future capital.

It took them nearly six hours to fully ascend the hulking plateau, and when they did they stumbled across the caves that Valicav wanted them to find. There were at least ten entrances to caves at the top, but they all seemed to be a part of the one at the center, which had a much larger entrance.

Naruto turned to Ulquiorra; their moment of reckoning was upon them.

"We'll go down the middle one. Hopefully we'll find a place where we can set up a command centre down there. But, we have to be careful. I doubt such an elaborate and convenient cave system is unpopulated. There are probably fights waiting for us up ahead."

Ulquiorra nodded, prepared to fight with his future king. He followed Naruto into the cave complex, and took note of the fact that it seemed to be either currently occupied or formerly occupied. The bat Hollow hoped it wasn't the former.

It was certainly an odd cave complex. The many entrances were somehow connected to each other, and some areas of the cave looked completely untouched and natural, while the rest looked like they have been tampered with in some way or another.

For example, a little earlier they had taken an enormous leap of faith off a dark, subterranean cliff in the natural part of the labyrinth, and it ended up in a narrow corridor that had steps and torches lining the walls.

It wouldn't be good to fight in such a narrow area.

But fight they did. Naruto managed to clean up what seemed to be mostly normal Hollows, but the fact that they were present indicated that the tunnel was indeed occupied. For two hours, this happened as they worked their way through what seemed to be a perplexing maze.

As such, they were completely on guard the entire time they were there. But, no amount of that could ever prepare them for what they found in the eastern section of the labyrinth.

It all started when they stumbled across a large and heavy stone door. The torches adjacent to the door held blue fire rather than the normal orange, and there were strange, almost tribal markings all along the door.

Naruto didn't care though, and used a lazy Cero to obliterate the door where it stood. Ulquiorra rolled his eyes; that was a sure-fire way to piss off anything that lay beyond the door, which by the way seemed to indicate an important area.

What lay behind the door was in fact a humble little chamber, about fifty feet in diameter. It had a high ceiling, was well-lit with torches, and it seemed to be a perfect place for them to conduct their business. Naruto instantly took a liking to it, that was for sure.

"This place... is _perfect!_" Naruto roared in joy, as he took in the full splendour of the chamber. He was shaken out of his joy when he accidentally kicked something across the floor. Upon closer inspection, it seemed to be a Hollow mask.

"What-?" Naruto began, but he couldn't finish his questions, as low, angry breathing noises suddenly filled the chamber. It almost sounded like snarls, and for the first time Naruto was made aware of what sat at the head of the chamber.

It was a large, stone chair, almost reminiscent of a throne, with two lit torches made from Hollow masks flanking either side of it. Naruto slowly backed away from it, seeing a startling figure sitting upon the stone throne.

Ulquiorra seemed to notice it as well, and his eyes widened as he took in what sat before him.

"_Oh, shit... oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,_" Naruto repeated the mantra in his mind. The humanoid figure, about six feet tall that sat on the throne.

Completely and utterly human-sized and human-shaped. He knew very well the implications of that.

"A Vasto Lorde..." he muttered under his breath.

* * *

Done! A pretty boring Chapter to be sure.

In fact, it's so boring that I don't have jack shit to say after that other than: Please Review!

Goodbye,

_**Alban55**_


	19. El Vasto Lorde Enfermo

**darkmachines**: The only one I can see joining Naruto would maybe be Dordonii. And, that's a HUGE maybe. I'm not fond of Cirucci, and I don't see how Ggio and Findor would join him considering that they're **Baraggan's** men.

**Akira Stridder**: No. . .

Well, everyone. I'd like send out a huge thank-you to all my fans for helping me achieve over FIVE-HUNDRED reviews for this story, as well as a thank you due to the fact that I'm probably going to get over two-hundred thousand hits after this Chapter.

You guys are all awesome!

In other news, I've been on quite the warpath with Naruto haters who don't know anything about the series. I mean honestly, if you're going to be a hater, then at least be educated on what you're hating on, for fuck's sake!

Okay, rant over. On with the chapter.

* * *

Chapter 19: El Vasto Lorde Enfermo

"_Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh SHIT. **OH SHIT!**_**" **Naruto kept repeated those same words in his mind over and over again, as he continued to back away carefully from the apparent Vasto Lorde sitting on the throne.

Even though he didn't show it outwardly and kept the same stoic face on during the entire ordeal, it was safe to say that Ulquiorra was feeling the same type of emotion deep inside. Out of all the places a Vasto Lorde could be, it just _had_ to be the one place where they needed to go.

It seemed that was just his luck.

A cloud of tension hung in the air between the three Hollows: a panicked one for the Adjuchas, and an angry one for the Vasto Lorde. They had no chance of cooling down the Vasto Lorde's anger, nor could they really escape in such a confined space like they were currently in.

Naruto jumped when the figure stepped off of its throne, and he was able to see a more pronounced image as it was being illuminated by the torch light.

It was grey in color, and seemed to give off the vibe that this was a Hollow that should not be messed with. It stood on two bulky hooves that resembled an ox's, and they looked like they could crush anything that stood in their way.

Its hands were similar to his feet, though thinner and more sleek. It had a mask that also resembled an ox's, and two long, curved horns that sprouted upwards from its mask. Its Hollow hole was slightly bigger than normal and was placed on its neck, directly above the raggedy, brown cloak that it used to cover the rest of its body.

Its ox-like appearance was very fitting, Ulquiorra noted, because the aura it was giving off was very similar to an angry bull. The ground shook slightly with every thunderous step the Hollow took, and when it was close enough it released its heavy, suffocating reiatsu.

A bead of sweat ran down the two Adjuchas' faces. The Vasto Lorde was definitely throwing its weight around in an attempt to intimidate them, and it was also definitely working!

Then, the Vasto Lorde faltered a little bit, as spasms and coughing fits began to wrack his body. This gave Naruto and Ulquiorra a temporary reprieve from the oppressive reiatsu, and enough time for them to recover their bearings and wonder what was going on.

The Vasto Lorde continued to have coughs that wracked its entire body, and the two Adjuchas were left confused yet relieved from the sudden display. However, just as soon as the two Adjuchas had fully recovered, the coughing stopped, and the crushing reiatsu returned in full force.

It was almost like drowning, Naruto thought numbly. Except for the fact that it was heavier and burned more. And they wouldn't die from it, though he didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

His vision was already swimming, but he could vaguely see the ox Hollow gradually getting closer to him. He looked slightly less angry, though he doubted a little change in emotion would save them.

He wasn't like Baraggan; he knew that already. This guy didn't toy with his opponents, or hold back for a weaker opponent. It would be infinitely more difficult for him to fight against someone like that. But, Naruto's mind was already working on a way to turn this battle into an advantage, and Ulquiorra was doing the same.

"Ulquiorra... we have to run. We can't fight this thing..." Naruto whispered, when he was sure that the bat Hollow was the only one who could hear him.

"Don't bother..." said the Vasto Lorde simply, somehow knowing what it was that Naruto said. Its voice was deep and commanding, the voice of a leader. It gave off the aura that you _had_ to follow its orders.

All intimidation that came from the voice vanished as the Hollow went through another coughing fit, and the two Adjuchas were granted temporary reprieve yet again.

"Go!" Naruto yelled while the Vasto Lorde was incapacitated. Ulquiorra registered the word as soon as Naruto spoke it, and the two bolted out of the room from whence they came, leaving the ox Hollow to his coughing fit.

The prospect of retreating wasn't too appealing to either of them. Ulquiorra hated to look weak as much as Naruto did, and the fact that they had to run away from a downed Hollow no less gave them a slight sting where their hearts should've been.

But, they couldn't hold a 2-on-1 fight in such a space, against a Hollow one level ahead of them. Though, with the way their posture slumped when they moved, it was easy to tell that neither of them were used to running away.

Down in the chamber, the Vasto Lorde's rage was so ignited by the display of disrespect that it completely overrode his cough. With a roar of bestial fury, the ox Hollow crashed after the two Adjuchas, his strength knocking over anything that dared get in his way.

"Naruto, he's gaining on us..." said Ulquiorra calmly, while trying to think of a plan they could both utilize. The two Hollow entered a winding staircase that hung over a seemingly bottomless chasm, the ox Hollow hot on their heels.

With a roar of rage, the ox Hollow decided that enough was enough, and used Sonido to appear directly in front of his prey, smashing headfirst into the staircase and reducing it to rubble before their eyes.

The shockwave that appeared from the blow crumbled the area of staircase the two Adjuchas were currently standing on, and they along with the rubble almost went plummeting down into the abyss below them.

They both would've fallen into the abyss, if Ulquiorra didn't have the ability to fly. Despite this however, because Naruto had not yet realized the ability to levitate, he fell directly into the inky blackness of the abyss, and the bat Hollow could do nothing but watch his king fall.

But, he couldn't just stand there and stare for long. The Vasto Lorde _had_ mastered the art of levitation, and instead of following Naruto into the darkness, he decided to try and clip the bat Hollow while in the air.

Ulquiorra barely dodged the ox Hollow, and tried to escape while it went careening into the back wall, leaving an enormous crater from the force he had used.

"_Apparently, this Vasto Lorde isn't that smart. I can easily escape if he's going to keep trying these reckless, time-wasting attacks. However..._" Ulquiorra's thinking cut off as he cast a glance towards the black abyss.

"_No. Naruto's strong; he can handle this on his own. I just need to worry about my own safety for the time being..._" The bat Hollow flew through the nearest opening he could find, and disappeared from the sight of the Vasto Lorde.

Said Vasto Lorde had since recovered from his overblown attack, looking around in anger at not seeing the bat Hollow around anymore. He released some angry steam from his nose, and seemed to be contemplating his next course of action.

There came a loud, annoyed grunting noise from far below inside the pit, and the Vasto Lorde's attention was drawn to it immediately. Forgetting about the bat Hollow for the time being, it focused all its attention on the new prey.

"_Looks like the bat will have to wait. I've got to catch a little more obvious prey right now..._" the ox thought to himself, preparing to delve himself into the putridly deep ravine.

Naruto's voice was heard again by the Vasto Lorde, yet this time it was only a faint echo that reverberated throughout the caves. The cavern was almost completely silent afterwards, though one could hear the vague dripping of subterranean water below.

The Vasto Lorde bounded off the wall and into the darkness, despite having no visible landmarks to tell him where he would land. But, he jumped in there with a fluid familiarity, as if he had done this several times before.

Naruto knew he was fucked the moment he had fallen into the hole, even before the Vasto Lorde followed him in. He couldn't see five feet in front of him, let alone know where to find an exit or where to walk.

He stubbed his front, left paw on a stalagmite and grunted in pain, perhaps a little louder than he should have, as the voice echoed up through the cave to God knows where.

Naruto froze, and he could almost hear a pin drop in the silence. He mechanically craned his head upwards from where he had fallen, trying to catch a glimpse of anything that would be coming.

He wasn't graced with anything, however, as he had fallen so far that all light had disappeared from his view, and all he saw was the inky, perpetual blackness that he was currently residing in.

He thought to charge up a small Cero in his mouth, providing at least some semblance of light, no matter how small it may be. Yet, as soon as he did that, he heard a faint whooshing noise from above him, a sound that was getting louder rapidly.

The Adjuchas took off, not wanting to stay and face the Vasto Lorde he just knew was following him in total darkness. He stumbled and tripped over several rocks and stalagmites, but he did manage to feel around enough to find a narrow opening and a staircase that had been carved into the wall.

The ox Hollow heard his rustling however, and Naruto picked up his pace when he heard a loud, deafening roar from the area he had just been in. The Vasto Lorde shot off in his direction with a lot more fluidity than Naruto had, and Naruto knew he would be forced to slow down the Vasto Lorde, somehow.

He spotted some light ahead of him, and made a beeline for it without wasting any time. He emerged in a part of the cave complex much narrower and less uniform than the place he had fallen.

He skidded to a halt, turning around to meet the Hollow that would inevitably be appearing from the dark, narrow passageway. He charged up his orange Cero, and managed to get it off just when the blurry image of the Vasto Lorde was speeding through the passage.

The result of his attack remained engraved in his mind for a few seconds, and he knew that this was his time to act. He noticed the doorway high above them the moment they entered the room. The fox Adjuchas sent one of his curvas at the Vasto Lorde, before he nimbly hopped onto an outcropping of rocks about twenty feet above him.

The smoke cleared exactly one second after that, and the ox's rage began anew. He drilled through the rubble that Naruto's two attacks had left behind, and entered the chamber, his angry eyes fixated on Naruto.

"You motherfucking Adjuchas, your annoying running is getting on my nerves. No one runs from Torobic and gets away with it without getting brutalized. You hear me, you god damn coward!" the Vasto Lorde now known as Torobic cried, as the Adjuchas leapt from outcropping to outcropping in an attempt to reach the door.

The Vasto Lorde sighed when he wasn't graced with a response.

"It seems you didn't hear me..." he said lightly, and when he was done he flashed away in a blur of silver, reappearing and levitating directly in front of the rock outcropping Naruto was currently standing on.

"Wha-" Naruto grunted, his eyes widening in pure shock.

Torobic smiled for the first time, a nasty, sadistic grin that lit his face up.

"Sonido." he said simply, not an ounce of emotion behind that word. It was as if he were simply informing him of what it was, out of concern for the lesser Hollow's education.

No one said anything for a good few seconds, but that didn't mean nothing was going on. Torobic was focusing his clear blue reiatsu in the center of his palm. It was a strange move, the spherical structure of the reiatsu made it seem like it was a standard Cero, but the form and the heavy hissing of the reiatsu was far more chaotic that something a Cero could do.

Naruto wasn't given any more time to dwell on the subject, because Torobic was prepared for his attack.

"Bomba Azula," he whispered. The blue ball was released from the Vasto Lorde's palms, and it hovered in the air for a moment, its ethereal luminescence making it look like a will o' the wisp.

But, this serene little ball of energy rippled out suddenly, blue energy branching off from the core almost like a Nazi or Hindu swastika. Naruto was mesmerized by the attack, finding that his legs wouldn't work for him, as if they had turned into large husks of gelatin.

It wasn't until the blue swastika attempted to suck him into its core did his legs finally work again. Indeed, Naruto couldn't believe what the energy ball was doing, and had attempted to escape from its gravity. Yet, he had found the pull to be too much for him, and he was promptly deposited in the very center of the ball.

The concentrated reiatsu scalded his skin, and he could already feel fat welts rising on his skin from the burns. He roared out and cursed in pain, something that caused Torobic to chuckle sadistically.

Naruto attempted to free himself, but found little to no progress with it. The pull of the blue energy was holding him down firmly, holding him in place as well as inflicting damage to his body.

He heard Torobic go into another coughing fit, but the pain was numbing his senses around him, and it felt muffled and vague to him. What was wrong with this Vasto Lorde, anyway?

Naruto struggled to get a better view of the sick Hollow, wincing with every movement he took. The Vasto Lorde's attack wouldn't let him, however, as it was prepared to strike with its non-corporeal appendages.

In a vibrant display of cool blue energy, the four appendages attempted to pierce through his bound body. They would only partially succeed however, as the Vasto Lorde's coughing fit lessened his control on the attack, and added to the fact that Naruto was releasing his reiatsu was throwing them off even further.

Naruto managed to break free of the attack as soon as the blue appendages came together at the center, and flashed in a lethal explosion of reiatsu. However, the fox Hollow couldn't fully avoid the strike, and he took a heavy grazing from one of the appendages just as he left.

Naruto grit his teeth to prevent himself from crying out in pain. His left side had suffering a nasty burn from just the little graze, and Naruto was left wondering what would've happened if the full attack had hit him.

He fell to his knees and panted, taking a look at his wound as he did. The smell of burnt hair permeated his nostrils, but that was only a minor issue when he looked at the burnt flesh that was oozing a nasty black ichor from the blisters on his wounded area.

Naruto surprised himself by being able to pull himself to his feet quickly in such a condition, but he was never one to question a blessing in such a situation. Ignoring his pain, Naruto blurred over to the still coughing Vasto Lorde, thoroughly intent on taking his head.

The Vasto Lorde, for all he was worth, wasn't going to go down so easily to an Adjuchas. Despite his weakened state, he blocked the attack from head-on with his beefy arms.

He was surprised by the amount of force behind it, and despite minimizing the damage and redirecting the attack, he suffered a nasty vertical slashing wound that took off a chunk of his mask.

The threat of damage forced Torobic from his coughing fit, and Naruto realized that attacking the Vasto Lorde probably wasn't the best idea in the world. For now, he had a presumably angry and completely non-weakened Vasto Lorde that he had to deal with.

The cave was completely silent, as if Hueco Mundo was bowing in respect and fear of the angered titan. Torobic gave an unhealthy roar of rage, and brought down his powerful fist straight onto his foolish opponent's torso.

A resounded crack was heard as Naruto's ribs broke, and he went barreling through the air to land lamely on one of the rock outcroppings. He struggled to his feet, and didn't even have time to notice that Torobic had blurred right next to him again, his fist poised for a lethal strike.

Naruto blurred over to the next outcropping, not even stopping to watch the previous one crumble underneath the strike. Hopefully, the attack would have cooled Torobic rage, and he would find a chance to escape the rampaging Vasto Lorde.

Torobic's rage lasted a little longer than expected, and he managed to get one successful attack on Naruto before he was afflicted by another coughing fit. This time, Naruto learned from his mistakes and intelligently decided not to attack Torobic, and with a few agile leaps he managed to escape into the wide opening at the top of the room.

A few mazes later, and Naruto had reached the entrance to the cave complex where he and Ulquiorra had entered. He nearly collapsed once he viewed the open Hueco Mundo sky and the murky, black water, but he got accustomed to just catching his breath and relishing in his successful escape.

"Naruto?" came a calm, stoic voice. One that was clearly questioning his well-being.

"Ulquiorra? 'Dat you?" Naruto breathed, noticing the bat Hollow from where he was sitting on a large boulder. The bat Hollow had clearly been waiting for him for a good few minutes.

"Yeah. I managed to get away from the Vasto Lorde when he used one of his overblown attacks. It looks like you had quite the run-in with him yourself?" he commented.

Naruto grunted, and then punched the ground in anger.

"That damn Valicav! He never told me something like this would happen! Months of walking and travelling to this place that he holds in such a high regard, and we find out that its housing a fucking Vasto Lorde of all things. I bet he knew that this would happen!" Naruto ranted.

"If I ever see that asshole again, I'm gonna rip out his intestines and jump rope with them, and then I'm gonna tear off his limbs and bludgeon him to death with them..." he cackled insanely, as more and more images of Valicav dying entered his mind, each one more and more brutal than the last.

"Are you sure you should be thinking of creative ways to kill this Valicav right now? If we stay here forever, that Vasto Lorde is bound to catch up to us sooner or later." Ulquiorra said in response to Naruto's words.

"Aw, come on, Ulquiorra. Being insane is no fun is you aren't irrational from time to t-" A loud crashing noise came from directly behind the two Hollows, and in a split-second, the figure Ulquiorra had dreaded reappearing flew through one of the openings to the cave complex, demolishing it in the process.

Naruto and Ulquiorra shielded their faces from the debris, and waited for the dust to clear before they had to face their foe.

Torobic stood before his elusive prey, adopting a slightly better demeanour than the two have ever seen on him. It was a kin to a glorious happiness after achieving some great thing, and in this case it was cornering his prey.

"I finally got the two of you in one place..." Torobic wheezed, his voice morphing to that of a cunning, dangerous predator.

Naruto and Ulquiorra fell into a stance, preparing themselves for the inevitable battle. Torobic nodded, feeling the mutual sensation that accompanied both of them, the fact that they knew they would fight.

Torobic blurred into action before the two Hollow could even think about attacking, reappearing in the space between the two Hollows. He used his reiatsu to deliver a back-hand slap to Ulquiorra, knocking him back. The bat Hollow taken care of for the moment, Torobic focused all of his attention on the fox Hollow.

Naruto meanwhile, after seeing Ulquiorra get slapped away like he was nothing, just barely had enough time to avoid one of the Hollow mask horns that threatened to gore him.

The fox Hollow dodged to the left, and nimbly bit the attacking horn, but this proved to be a mistake, as a reiatsu-embued fist caught his mask, nearly shattering it underneath its weight.

Naruto skidded along the plateau, nearly falling from the summit. Torobic wasn't about to let him rest, however, because he was currently dive bombing straight at him, fist poised for a strike that would no doubt kill him.

But, Naruto was saved in the nick of time when Torobic was forced to dodge the whip-like tail that threatened to wound him. Naruto used the distraction to blur away from the Hollow and move back to his original position.

Torobic hissed at Ulquiorra, who was standing there calmly like there was nothing for him to be accused of. He guided Naruto behind his position, making him free of his line of attack.

He motioned for Naruto to stand off to the side so he could catch the Vasto Lorde off guard, and raised his finger in preparation for a familiar attack.

Torobic easily evaded the Cero, and Sonido'd away to the left, in the exact position where Naruto would blur himself into existence a millisecond later. Ulquiorra's plan failed, though, as Torobic also evaded Naruto's attempt to lop off his head via claws.

This was getting ridiculous for both Naruto and Ulquiorra. It might as well have been a full-grown man picking on a couple of four-year olds, because that certainly was the way this fight was going for them. Their attacks weren't hitting him, he was outspeeding them and hitting them where it hurt, and even if they did hit him, their attacks had no effect whatsoever.

The Vasto Lorde blurred away again, appearing to Naruto's side, and after doing a quick flip in the air, prepared an ax kick that would've caved in Naruto's skull.

The Gods were definitely smiling on Naruto today, and as luck would have it, Torobic was sent into yet another coughing fit right in the middle of the air, and he fell to the ground uselessly, his attack completely forgotten.

Naruto kicked the Vasto Lorde while he was down, sending him over in Ulquiorra's direction.

"Ulquiorra! He's having another coughing fit. Attack him now while you can, for it's the only time either of us will be able to get an attack in on him!" he shouted.

Ulquiorra was prepared. He bound the flying Vasto Lorde in place with his tail, kicking him and then launching him yet again into one of the cave entrances. This particular one collapsed as well, but they both knew the Vasto Lorde had more than enough strength to get out.

"Ulquiorra, does something seem off about this Vasto Lorde to you?" Naruto asked after the Vasto Lorde had been flung into the cave complex. Ulquiorra glanced at his king, though voiced no words.

"I mean, he seems to have a terrible, wracking illness. It kind of reminds me of tuberculosis, but I don't know of any diseases that can affect Hollows or anything..." Naruto trailed off, bad thoughts coming to his head.

Ulquiorra nodded.

"It's probably something native to this area, because there's no known disease in the desert that can affect Hollow. Here, however, it might be a different story. With different climate and conditions may come different pathogens, ones that may affect us Hollows. It's not a stretch of the imagination by any means." Ulquiorra explained slowly.

Naruto nodded in turn.

"That's... kind of an unpleasant thought."

"But, it's something that working to out advantage in this situation. We're figure out the consequences of the disease later, but for now we'll have to take advantage of his illness as much as we can." Ulquiorra told Naruto.

The bat Hollow panned his eyes back towards the cave entrance, sensing something.

"And it looks like we're going to have to get started on that right away..."

True to Ulquiorra's earlier words, the rubble covering the cave entrance burst open in a chaotic display, and out from it emerged Torobic, with his demeanor rapidly shifting from normal to enraged.

"**You bugs... are becoming far more trouble that you're worth..."** he hissed, venom pouring from every single syllable in that sentence.

"**Bomba Azula!**" he roared, and the familiar, deceptively harmless blue energy emerged from his hands. Upon seeing that, Naruto desperately ran over to Ulquiorra.

"Dodge it, Ulquiorra! Fly!" he yelled.

The bat Hollow didn't need to be told twice, and he rapidly ascended into the air. However, he was unprepared for when Naruto latched onto his leg with his claws, effectively becoming cargo.

Ulquiorra winced as he carried Naruto higher into the sky, and he looked down when he saw a vague flash of blue light out of the corner of his eye, which was then obstructed by the Vasto Lorde blurring into existence right in front of him.

"Thanks for the lift." said Naruto unhelpfully, as he leaped from Ulquiorra to a high chasm extending above the cave system. He landed nimbly, and away from the other Hollows in the area.

Ulquiorra was having difficulty with the Vasto Lorde. Every punch he took was magnified in strength due to Torobic's high reiatsu coating it, and he seemed to be even more skilled in aerial maneuvering than he was.

Both of them knew that the bat Hollow couldn't last forever like this. With every punch Torobic connected, blood spurted from Ulquiorra's mouth. Much more of it and his organs would be ruptured.

Naruto wasn't about to stand there and let that happen, though. He fired Cero after Cero at Torobic, though none of them connected or even forced the Vasto Lorde to stop his assault.

"Hahahahahahahahahahahahahah!" Torobic cackled as he continued to pummel Ulquiorra, who was seeing a new side to the grumpy, though fairly calm Hollow. The ox Hollow always seemed to have a sane head on his shoulders, even despite his rage issues. He had reminded the bat Hollow of himself, though more temperamental.

Yet now, as Ulquiorra felt time slow to a standstill, and the psychotic laughter pounding through his ears, he knew that wasn't the case at all. This Hollow was absolutely nothing like him.

He was acting like a deranged monster, like a madman. He was acting like...

...Naruto.

Ulquiorra managed to see out of his dizzy eyes the fox Hollow he had been travelling with all this time. He had been futilely firing Cero after Cero at this Hollow whom he could now call his carbon copy...

Trying to save him.

Ulquiorra always wondered if a leopard could change his spots, and become something he otherwise wasn't. Did that hold true for the fox Hollow right now, who was pouring every bit of energy into saving his only subordinate?

The words rang in Ulquiorra's head now more than ever, and if there was more to Naruto than the monster who was obsessed with nothing more than revenge and killing.

He almost thought there was, but every time he thought about it, his mind focused on the Naruto he had been travelling with all this time, and the things he had done.

"No... that isn't the case," Ulquiorra muttered from his stressed vocal chords, and he felt the feeling of apathy worm its way into his being.

It wasn't surprising that he didn't care what Naruto was. He was a nihilist through and through. He didn't care if Naruto was a monster, a demon, or even the Devil himself...

"I have resigned myself to being in his servitude. That's all there is to it..." he muttered as he took a punch that almost knocked him off the plateau. He opened one of his swollen eyes, and viewed Torobic's own grey ones, before he resolved to another coughing fit.

Naruto's voice broke him out of his thought process.

"Yes! A coughing fit! Now's our chance, Ulquiorra! Just follow my lead, and I'll make sure this Vasto Lorde dies!" he ordered, and Ulquiorra felt a new strength enter his being.

Monster or not, Naruto knew how to inspire confidence in someone, and for that, he was grateful. This Hollow was going to die today, that much was for certain.

"Got it..." Ulquiorra said, a very, _very_ faint flicker of joy appearing in his voice.

"Just fling him back to me after I stun him with... _this!_" he launched one of his orange Ceros at Torobic, grinning to himself as it connected with his skin.

The action did in fact stun the Vasto Lorde even further, allowing Ulquiorra to wrap his whip like tail around the ox's torso, before flinging it in Naruto's direction.

Naruto chuckled.

"Now!" he roared, blurring up towards Torobic, who was floating in mid-air directly above him. His mirrored the Vasto Lorde's position by being directly under him, which had a remarkable resemblance to the taijutsu move The only difference was, a quadrupedal being performing the move must have looked quite off.

"W-What a-are you d-doing?" asked Torobic between coughs.

"Just shut up and watch. It will be the last thing you'll ever see, so you might as well make it worthwhile..." Naruto muttered, and looked down to the ground far below them.

"Wait... y-you're not p-planning o-on..." Torobic roared, a twinge of fear entering his being.

Naruto grinned evilly, a spasm of pleasure entering his system just like the twinge of fear that entered Torobic's.

"Even with your iron skin, there's way you'll be able to survive a fall like that..." he trailed off, while covering Torobic's body with all four of his paws, binding the sick Vasto Lorde's already weakened body.

"Especially when hitting your head on the way down..." Naruto added, wrapping all nine of his tails around the Vasto Lorde, and flew off the edge with Torobic in tow.

Once falling, Naruto angled himself so Torobic would take the brunt of the damage, and the two went sailing down wind, gravity taking its unforgiving and merciless effects on the both of them.

"A-Are you i-insane!" the still coughing Vasto Lorde roared, as he and Naruto plummeted thousands of feet from the plateau to the unforgiving ground directly below.

"Maybe, but that's part of the fun!" Naruto guffawed. He was truly having fun, slamming this asshole into the ground, all the while feeling the rush of adrenaline that accompanied such a fall, and the wind washing over him in a torrent.

Torobic understandingly didn't share his sentiment. To him, the rushing wind and adrenaline was anything but pleasant, and the ground was getting closer and closer much too quickly for his liking.

One thousand feet...

Eight hundred feet...

Five hundred feet...

"Prepare for impact, bro, and please make sure to keep all limbs inside the vehicle at all times!" Naruto guffawed.

"No! Goddammit, you're insane, you psychotic fucker! Let me go! Let me go, now, or I'll kill you! Kill you dead! I'll-"

**_BOOM!_**

Torobic's body impacted into the ground below the instant they reached it, and he managed to cause a crater over twenty feet deep from the fall.

The force from the impact jarred his body, killing him instantly. Naruto was only slightly wounded, and leapt off the dead Hollow with surprising skill, landing on his feet ten feet away.

He didn't look back to see Torobic's legs flop over lifelessly without anything acting on them. Instead, he simply stared at the giant plateau in front of him, a triumphant sense of victory overcoming him.

"Don't worry..." he grinned. "We'll take good care of your home..."

* * *

Woot! Chapter Done!

I've gotta say, I have largely mixed feelings when it comes to this one. On one hand, I loved Naruto's finisher of Torobic, and Ulquiorra's thoughts on Naruto near the end of the Chapter.

However, something seems strangely off here, with the way the first half of the Chapter played out, and overall with this fight in general. The thing is, I can't quite place what it is. Maybe you guys can figure it out with reviewing, which is something I highly recommend you do.

I'll leave it to you, then.

**Translations and Other Features**

Bomba Azula: Blue Bomb

Kage Buyou: Shadow of the Dancing Leaf

Well, that's all for now, so see you guys later.

_**Alban55**_


	20. Reclutamiento

**SpeeDemon**: Well, I was at 196,000 hits before I updated, and I usually get about 10,000+ hits per Chapter, I thought I would pass up 200,000 on my next update.

**Awesome**: Well, I suppose the other nations can have people that become Shinigami, but I'm really going to only focus on the Shinigami ones, at least for this point in time.

**Xeiden**: No, he's not. He's just an OC.

**digitalflame192**: Funny you should mention that, as he shows up soon.

Well, it's been a while since I updated, and I'm sure there are a few of you who are wondering where the hell I've been. Well, I've been looking at my stories recently, and I've come to the conclusion that my outlines need work. There needs to be more planning before I decide to write a Chapter. (This is the reason I haven't updated One Twentieth of a Whole in forever.)

They're still not finished, but for the time being I figured I would update this story to satisfy everyone for the time being. I should also mention that while I'm working behind the scenes on these and other stuff, updates may not come at all until I'm finished. But, when I do finish and update, I'll be throwing in a couple of bonus features.

And one more thing, thanks for 200,000 hits! So with that, on with Chapter 20!

* * *

Chapter 20: Reclutamiento

"Dreendo-sama isn't going to like this very much..." hissed a shrouded figure lurking in the shadows at the top of the plateau. There wasn't much to said about this particular Hollow. It was covered in a plain black cloak that obscured almost all of his features, but what could be told about this creature was that it was thin, lithe, and subtle, the perfect build for a spy.

It was currently perched on top of the plateau, suppressing its reiatsu while remaining out of view of the other Hollows in the area. He had been assigned to spy on Torobic for quite some time now, and even when Torobic had emerged from his cave complex and trashed the two Hollows, the figure hadn't even batted an eyelash.

That quickly changed when the fox Hollow and the bat Hollow managed to get the advantage, and in a quick display of wit, managed to _kill_ Torobic by dropping him to his death thousands of feet below.

It took all of the Hollow's willpower to not have a panic attack right there. A development like this would massively screw up their plan, and he didn't want to be around to see his master's rage when he found out. He would have to leave his spot and go down, if only to confirm Torobic's death.

The cloud of dust cleared at the bottom, and the figure was able to confirm the death of Torobic, judging by how his legs limply protruded from the dirt below. The fox Hollow who had killed him seemed to be only slightly injured from the fall, though it was hard to tell considering how injured he had been during the fight. Whatever the case, the fox Hollow definitely hadn't been killed like Torobic had.

He heard a whooshing noise to the left of him, and it turned out that the bat Hollow who was just flying there idly had flown down to join his comrade, and maybe reap their reward. He almost forgot that the bat Hollow was still around, and cursed his stupidity at almost going out in plain view.

He moved himself out of his hiding place once he was sure the bat Hollow had completely descended, and when they couldn't see him, and prepared to find suitable cover down below. He had to find out more information about these two quickly, lest they become a threat.

* * *

When Torobic was pulled cleanly out of the dirt and sand by Naruto, his cold, dead body would never realize how intensely Naruto's evil red eyes were staring at him right then.

Naruto didn't stir when Ulquiorra landed in the dirt beside, never taking his gaze off the dead Vasto Lorde. He seemed to be even hurting himself from exertion, as his eyes seemed to adopt a manic, bloodshot look, and a few veins popped into the areas around his head that were visible. It was quite a grotesque scene, as even Ulquiorra would note as such.

Ulquiorra was about to say something, but before he could even open his mouth, the fox Adjuchas stopped his intense gaze, cocked his head backwards, and emitted the loudest laugh Ulquiorra had heard him do thus far. It was just as manic as any of Naruto's other laughs, perhaps even more so. Yet this time, there was no hatred laced behind the laugh, just simply insane joy.

Whatever the case, he was probably just ecstatic about the fact that he just killed a _Vasto Lorde_ of all things, and would gain a massive power-up once he feasted upon the corpse. Ulquiorra knew already that there was no way the fox Hollow would ever share any of his meal, and he honestly didn't expect Naruto to do that anyway. The spoils brought about by a dead Hollow belong to its killer, and no one else.

Naruto himself didn't need to be told twice. He didn't even speak, gesture, or even acknowledge Ulquiorra's presence, and proceeded to selfishly tear his teeth into the Vasto Lorde's corpse, and from the sounds he was making, it was indeed delicious. Naruto didn't even make an attempt to have some restraint.

Even Ulquiorra couldn't help but feel a little jealous at that sight.

Halfway through the meal, Naruto seemed to spasm in a crude, almost sexual manner, and Ulquiorra started to feel dirty just watching this scene play out. And, oh god, was he really seeing how _tenderly_ Naruto was _caressing_ the half-eaten body?

As he was eating the body, Naruto, Ulquiorra, and even the messenger off to the side could just_ feel _the change in power occurring in Naruto. As he got closer and closer to polishing off the body, Naruto's orange reiatsu began to release itself, become more beautiful and vivid with each passing second, but also much more violent and oppressing.

The world itself seemed to rumble from the heavy reiatsu, yet when all of this was occurring, Naruto's body never changed one bit. Despite eating a Vasto Lorde and gaining a tremendous amount of power, Naruto... wasn't evolving.

That didn't stop Naruto from eating with pure gusto, devouring every bit of flesh with unrestrained relish. He didn't care about evolution in this particular moment. All he cared about was eating the meal and the taste of it.

The look on his face was pure bliss too, so much so that he almost looked like he was going to pass out. When he finally finished, he collapsed backwards into the dirt and released a moan of pure ecstasy.

"T-That... was... _a-amazing!_" he moaned softly, blood dribbling from his mouth lewdly and clashing with the seemingly positive scene. Ulquiorra sighed reproachfully, embarrassed by Naruto's behavior.

"Did you really have to act that way? What you just did basically showed that you don't have any dignity." he lectured.

Naruto looked confused for a second, before he turned his head to the side and noticed his right-hand man.

"Oh, hey Ulquiorra! When did you get here?" he asked, before laughing uproariously. Ulquiorra then adopted a deadpan expression at his king's absentminded nature.

The bat Hollow wiped his palm across his face, his eyes showing pure exasperation at the brash Hollow in front of him. Then again, with his consuming of the Vasto Lorde, it was pretty much guaranteed that Naruto was far beyond his level now, even if he didn't quite evolve into a Vasto Lorde.

"So, how are you feeling?" he asked. Naruto looked at him happily.

"Great! I feel great! Power is rushing through me at a phenomenal rate, and I feel like I can do anything right now, with no one able to stop me." Naruto exclaimed, laughing all the way.

"Even though you didn't evolve?"

That put a slight damper on Naruto's mood, though it wasn't enough to wipe the grin off of his face.

"C'mon, Ulquiorra. You should know by now just how much it takes to evolve to Vasto Lorde status. We've both eaten so many of our own kind in hopes of becoming one of them. The Vasto Lorde class should not be underestimated. I'm not surprised that eating one didn't propel me into an evolution. The Vasto Lorde class takes... _more_ than that. Any less, and that stage couldn't be considered the pinnacle of a Hollow's existence." Naruto said.

Ulquiorra looked slightly thoughtful at that.

Over to the side, the messenger was disturbed by Naruto's actions, but more than anything, he was afraid that he would incurring his master's wrath once he got back to report to him.

"If you're quite finished, Naruto, we've got our new cave complex to explore. However, I'm not sure what this Valicav had in mind when he suggested that you use this place to set up your new kingdom. It's so labyrinthine that it would actually be harmful rather than advantageous." Ulquiorra stated.

The messenger narrowed his eyes at that little bit of information.

Naruto laughed.

"I think he meant that this place is the only real area he knows of that hasn't been claimed by anyone else, but it turned out that little bit of information wasn't true, either, seeing how it was occupied by a fucking Vasto Lorde!"

Ulquiorra was pacified at that bit of information, but unknown to the two, the messenger was lapping up information that he would go back and tell his master.

"These two Adjuchas want to start their own kingdom. It would be simple my master to crush them now with his forces, and we should take care of them now, in the off chance that they actually _do_ become powerful. I just hope Master-sama isn't too enraged however, as he might make some unpleasant decisions. At the very least, I know that he'll be enraged enough to want to take revenge on the Hollows who killed his brother. These two don't stand a chance..." the messenger mused, before taking off into the shadows.

* * *

"So... if I want to build a kingdom, where should I start?" Naruto mused, as he sat down on Torobic's throne. The two Hollow somehow managed to make their way back into Torobic's throne room, deciding to take up residence in the spacious cavern.

"Well, the main thing we need to do is find Hollows who will take up positions within your kingdom. With your power, it shouldn't be any problem to make regular Hollows obey you without question. The real problem here is getting an Adjuchas under your command." Ulquiorra advised.

"Hmm..." Naruto breathed, before a sudden noise turned his attention to the outside. Ulquiorra heard it too, and both Adjuchas recognized what it was instantly.

"Low-level Hollows..." Ulquiorra stated for the both of them, discerning the hostile cries and shrieks of many Hollow out in the cave complex. In response to that, Naruto grinned savagely.

"This should be the perfect time to exercise my power then. Stay here, Ulquiorra. I won't be longer than an hour." Naruto ordered, to which Ulquiorra complied immediately.

He was surprised by how close the Hollows were to the throne room. Once he walked out of his throne room, it only took two rooms to the right, until he was standing on a small ledge overlooking a shallow pit, where the Hollows were currently milling about, one occasionally taking a bite out of another. All together, there were about forty of them total, and none of them were even a remote threat to an Adjuchas.

"_Too easy..._" he thought.

With a deep breath, Naruto unleashed his heaviest roar, while simultaneously releasing his full reiatsu. The sheer power he was displaying instantly petrified every single Hollow in the room, and they all stared, enthralled by the authority this Hollow demanded.

"Listen up!" Naruto boomed, doing his best impression of an authoritative voice. "Torobic is dead, meaning that I am the new master of this place, and I am making all of you my subjects, and we will form the greatest kingdom this world has ever seen. Do I make myself clear?" he roared, his voice dropping an octave. It was a simple speech without too many details, but this was all Naruto needed.

The Hollows looked at each other for a moment, before they finally cheered in agreement, too enthralled by Naruto's power and authority to do anything else.

Meanwhile, back in the main chamber, Ulquiorra clearly heard Naruto's roar, followed by the heavy reiatsu, and at that moment, he knew that their kingdom has just gained their first citizens.

"With his power, indeed... " he muttered to himself in the dark.

* * *

"So, you let them go back to their colony?" asked Ulquiorra as soon as Naruto re-entered the chamber.

"Yeah, they still live in this cave complex, and they've already sworn allegiance to me, knowing full well what will happen if they break their word to me. I think it's safer to keep all the regular vassals at arm's length right now, at least until we expand our horizons, and craft this place into a suitable palace."

"Anyway, Ulquiorra, tomorrow I'm going to go on a long trip, and see if we can get some more Hollows to join our ranks. I'll be gone several months, so for the time being I'm leaving this place in your care. I also want you to see to the forty Hollows I've subjugated, and see if we can get some more info about this area, and maybe even get some mapping of the terrain done." Naruto said.

For the first time, Ulquiorra actually bowed to his king, and Naruto was left pleased with the obedience.

"And, just so you know. I may send some other Hollows your way if they're close enough. Be prepared for an influx of Hollows if that's the case."

With those final words, Naruto walked out of the main chamber into the rest of the cave labyrinth, leaving Ulquiorra in charge of the entire complex.

* * *

_Two months later_...

Things were going well in Naruto's little recruitment trip. In the first couple of weeks, he had sent over six-hundred new Hollows over to Ulquiorra, who knew just how to initiate the new recruits into the kingdom. After that, he had sent a lesser number of normal Hollows over to the complex, while keeping on the lookout for Gillian and Adjuchas he could add to the kingdom. As was predicted by Ulquiorra, both of the evolved states of Hollow were much more difficult to recruit. He had given up on Gillian anyway, as they were too stupid to listen to words or even force.

Adjuchas, on the other hand, he still wanted beyond belief. However, this was proving problematic. First of all, they were much rarer than normal Hollows, and when he did encounter one, they weren't intimidated or enraptured by his power, so he had to beat them into submission, and force them to recognize his power. So far, he had only recruited thirteen Adjuchas, and every single one of them were pretty low level. While this made them easy to subdue, there wasn't as much merit in taking them.

That all changed when at the present day, he stumbled across two high-level Adjuchas battling it out against each other, yet failing to break any sort of stalemate between the two of them. The fox Hollow also noticed four low to mid-level Adjuchas and a unique Gillian off to the side aways, watching the battle intently. Clearly, they were the companions of one of these Hollows, though it would be difficult to tell at first glance.

An explosion of reiatsu shook the other Hollows in the area, but Naruto was left unaffected, as he stood on top of a small hill overlooking the battling Hollows below. He then took in their appearances and fighting style, noting that the latter of which were quite different from each other.

The first, much less subtle Hollow seemed to be a panther-like Hollow around his size. It had thin, sleek armor covering its entire body, and had a thin tail that was protruding from its backside that didn't seem to be usable for combat. This Hollow was darting all over the place, using his superior speed and skill in an attempt to get the jump on his opponent.

His opponent was hardly fooled by this, however. The other Adjuchas was almost twice the size of the panther, and it definitely showed that it had more physical strength. It stood upright, and had a strange mask, looking somewhat like a cross between a horned demon and a praying mantis. It had four wiry arms which seemed to have scythes growing from them at the ends, and a thin, yet sturdy white bone armor was covering most of its torso and legs.

Anyway, the battle went on for quite a long time, with the panther Hollow failing to majorly penetrate the mantis' rock solid defenses, and the mantis failing to land a single strike on the panther.

All in all, he was impressed by the display of power these two were showing. It was unlike any of the Adjuchas he had recruited before, and it would be a waste if he didn't get both of these two in his forces. Though, the main problem was trying to convince them, not to mention the fact they wouldn't get along if they did accept.

But whatever, these two would be difficult to convince. Even if he did beat them into submission, he doubted that would convince them to join his cause. If anything, from the way they fought with joy and relish, they would want to be finished off if they were ever to be defeated. If spared, they would detest the one who let them live.

Naruto sighed.

"Oh well. I better make my presence known with the two of them. This may be a delicate situation, so I'd better saunter down there quietly, and draw their attention at the right time."

With stealth that only a fox was capable of, he crept down the slope without drawing attention from anyone, hiding in the shadows as he watched the two battle.

* * *

_Two months before..._

The Reino Humanoide was the only known Hollow kingdom that existed in the sea. To be more specific, it existed on an island large enough to settle and build a grand palace, which was located about halfway across the Hueco Mundo ocean, between the mainland where Naruto's cave complex was, and the large landmass that existed beyond the inky ocean.

The island itself was a dark, gloomy place, and it made one fathom why anyone would choose these place to build their kingdom. There was more plant-life than the mainland, even though it mostly consisted of tall grass and trees that looked both dead and gnarled.

A mighty, gothic castle stood at the absolute center of the large island. It wasn't nearly as large as Las Noches, but the aura it gave off was that it was just as powerful. The area around the castle was filled with strange stone buildings and structures, different in architecture than anything seen before, but they could still be easily identified for their roles.

The last thing notable on the island was this strange, rectangular protrusion that came out of the back of the castle. It was connected to the main castle, but it seemed it served a whole other function whatsoever. Their were no windows or anything to see into the building, so one would not know what existed within them as they heard unearthly shrieks and roars coming from inside the chamber.

Within the castle, the messenger Hollow who had eavesdropped on Naruto and Ulquiorra knew he was in deep shit when his master's face became alight with anger and rage. Dreendo Cayera, the king of Reino Humanoide, and former advisor to Baraggan, was very quick to anger and his subjects knew never to set off his temper, yet sometimes it seemed to come without warning.

He addressed the messenger, blazing eyes visible under the heavy cloak he wore. He slowly began to release his reiatsu, which began to crush the poor messenger.

"_What _did you just say? Repeat your report at once!" he commanded.

"W-Well, D-Dreendo-sama, it seems t-that your y-younger b-brother T-T-Torobic has been k-killed, and his k-killers are a-attempting to s-set up their own k-kingdom in the c-cave complex where he l-lived..." the messenger stuttered.

Dreendo released his full reiatsu, startling all his Adjuchas guards into submission. They could practically feel the anger rolling off their king in waves, and there was even a hint of something they didn't believe their king was capable of.

...Was it sorrow?

"Dreendo-sama! Please calm down! You can't lose control like this!" shouted one of the Adjuchas guards, as Dreendo stood up from his spiked throne. The king ascended down the long, narrow hall, looking around at the drab, grey stone wall. The entire throne room lacked any sort of decoration besides the throne itself and a few windows, as Dreendo wasn't one for frivolousness.

The cloaked king stared out one of the adjacent windows, looking down upon the rectangular chamber behind the castle. A strange, unreadable posture entered his being, and his subjects were left questioning.

However, after a few seconds, Dreendo walked back over to his throne, contempt entering his expression as he gazed back upon his subjects.

"Hmph, I don't care anymore. My brother was just an animal Hollow, inferior in every way to me. I feel nothing over his death, except a-anger that the secret he held is now lost to us." he voice cracked slightly, and one could almost say he was just putting on the apathetic face as a king.

He turned away from his guards and the messenger, and only the observant ones could tell that his breathing had increased slightly.

"There's no need to get worked up over the death of a mere animal Hollow. They are inferior beings, in both intelligence and combat abilities. They are also unworthy to obtain what we so sought after. I founded this entire kingdom on the principle that us humanoid Hollows are superior creatures, and our superiority will prevent us from mourning the deaths of those sub-Hollows." the king said, more to himself than anyone else.

"My brother is just a _besti,_" Dreendo hissed, using the derogatory term he coined himself.

The guards looked at each other. This racist approach was common in the kingdom, so much so that the "enlightened" Hollows refused to believe that _all _of them were just beasts to the core. In fact, the Hollows of the kingdom ate only animal-based Hollows. Of course, only the Adjuchas really took this to heart. The Gillian and normal Hollows didn't mind who they ate, especially considering they were near mindless, and it was only through strict rules that they were kept in line. That would all change once their master's dream was achieved.

"These two animal Hollows, they shouldn't be allowed to form their own kingdom, especially one that will try to rival us in power. We're going to travel to the mainland, and obliterate this weed before it can grow..." Dreendo ordered.

That was strange. Usually, their king's racist attitude would make him refuse to believe that an animal Hollow could be anywhere near his strength. And, now they were going to bring much of their forces to crush something that probably won't even be a threat. It was almost like Dreendo was _afraid_ of the ones who killed his brother.

"Of course..." Dreendo said smoothly, a soft, yet sadistic undertone added to his voice. "There's no need to dirty our humanoid Hollow hands in the extermination of some _animal_ Hollows.

He turned back to look at the rectangular chamber again.

"Guards! Escort me down to the Estable!" he ordered, to which five of his guards saluted their king, and surrounded the much smaller Vasto Lorde at a three-hundred sixty degree angle.

"We're going to use _them_, and crush that cave complex before they can even do anything."

* * *

Chapter 20 is done! Please Review it!

Two more familiar faces make an appearance in this Chapter, but I doubt those two are going to be convinced so easily, especially considering how they act in the manga.

This is also the beginning of the Reino Humanoide arc, which is going to be slightly longer than the Valicav arc (Chapter 13-16), and the Pre-Kingdom arc (Chapter 17-19). The _very_ special arc is getting closer and closer, and I'm still unprepared how to go around it.

**Translations and Other Features**

Reino Humanoide: Humanoid Kingdom

Besti: Shortened form of the word _bestia_, the Spanish word for "beast", and a derogatory word for animal Hollows.

Estable: Stable

That's it for now.

Adios,

**_Alban55_**


	21. Arma de Dreendo

**Sakalinti**: The Naruto cast will making more appearances later in the story. Danzou will not be cast as a Hollow, and Naruto already killed Sasuke back in Chapter 2.

**Nameless Anonymous Person**: There are none, every story doesn't have to have pairings.

**TheImmortalOne43**: You didn't have a question, but I found it necessary to comment on this one. I already had the whole plot known before the outline, and I knew how I was going to end it. I wrote a better outline to figure out how to perform better with more technical aspects of this story.

Now that **Amenaza's** outline is finally finished, which means I can finally update this story on a regular basis. Unfortunately, **One Twentieth of a Whole's** outline still has quite a bit of working on before I can update it, so the already delayed Chapter will be even more delayed. And, when I do finally finish that one, I'll be adding the bonus features I was talking about in the last Chapter.

* * *

Chapter 21: Arma de Dreendo

Naruto knew right then and there that these two had so much potential. Their actions, their demeanor, and the overall aura they gave off was just something that seemed right in Naruto's eyes.

That wasn't all, either. Their power, although not on the level of his own, defined them as somewhat talented Adjuchas. It was... _captivating_, to say the least. They would do anything in their power to win, and the brutality in which they fought was stunning. Even those who were supposed to be on their side had backed away as far as humanly possible, opting not to be caught in the crossfire. They seemed to know that their superior would finish them off in a heartbeat if they so much as got in their way.

A part of him wanted to just sit back and watch this admittedly entertaining fight play out, and a _very_ small part of him wanted to convince these two without having to use force. However, his rational side was telling him that Hollows of this caliber and malignity would never listen to his rambling, and his much larger, bloodthirsty side was raving at him to use force.

Sighing slightly, he leaned against the tall rock formation he was hiding behind, and casually released his reiatsu without a care in the world. Well, Naruto would say that he more than got their attention with that.

All the other Hollows minus the two combatants turned in surprise and even fear at the new reiatsu, proving to Naruto that their power was nowhere near the ones he was focused on.

But, it seemed even the two stronger Hollows seemed to be affected at least somewhat by his reiatsu, regardless of how well they tried to hide it. For one thing, they seem to have forgotten that they were at each others throats just a few seconds ago.

The two didn't say anything, but they did glare at Naruto with no small amount of force. The fox Hollow seemed to enjoy such an action though, as a twisted grin came alight upon his face when they did so.

"Who the fuck are you?" hissed the mantis Hollow, his vulgar tone mixing perfectly with his accent. Naruto panned his eyes between the two Hollows, not replying to the question.

He tried, with difficulty, to keep his predatory grin off of his face, but it seemed that it wasn't going to work. He knew this, and they seemed to know it too, considering they got tenser when he looked at them that way.

"I said _who_ the fuck are you?" hissed the mantis Hollow, this time saying it even more rudely than the first time. The panther Hollow snorted, shockingly coming to some sort of agreement with the mantis.

Naruto laughed, and turned away from the two Hollows to look at the pitch-black sky, though he never made the amateur mistake of dropping his guard in front of an opponent.

"Bastard, you makin' fun of us?" the panther Hollow spoke for the first time. His voice was wild and raspy, fitting for a Hollow like him. He was also just as rude as the mantis, though he was more temperamental and impatient.

"_Short temper, huh? I think I like this one. Reminds me of... me,"_ Naruto duly noted.

"Me? Oh, I'm just some traveling Adjuchas looking for some strong Adjuchas to add to my... _group_. I saw the two of you fighting each other, and was impressed with your display of power, so I decided to drop in and say_ hi..._" Naruto answered casually, keeping an eye on both of the Adjuchas in case they tried anything.

"_Well, that didn't work_..." Naruto thought to himself, seeing how his little implication just seemed to anger the two Hollows. Indeed, the mantis Hollow seemed to have some sort of sneer on its mask, and the panther was emitting a low growl at him.

The three Hollows stood there in relative tension, until they were snapped back to reality by a much weaker voice off to the side.

"G-Grimmjow, I think this fox Hollow is trying to tell us that he wants you to join him. W-With that kind of reiatsu, you should really listen to what he says. Forget about becoming a Vasto Lorde, and just save your own life and follow this guy..." said the insect Hollow standing over in the group, who was addressing the panther Hollow now known as Grimmjow.

Naruto frowned, as Grimmjow's rage increased tenfold at that kind of statement.

"Shut the hell up, you damn coward. I can _tell _what he's implying here, and I don't need you to tell me that this jackass wants me to join him. And, if you're gonna be so damn cowardly about this, you might as well get the fuck out of here. You're a damn coward, trying to save your own skin. Just because he has some strong reiatsu doesn't mean I'm going to give in to this guy!" Grimmjow roared at the insect Hollow.

The words seemed to cow the insect Hollow into submission, but Naruto looked entirely bored at this development.

"And you," Grimmjow said, pointing to Naruto. "You can take that little offer of yours and shove it up your red ass. _I_ am the King, and I will never be caught dead following ANYONE, especially some weak-ass fox-faced moron like you." he sneered.

Grimmjow took his eyes off him when he said, and when he glanced at Naruto again, the fox Hollow was lying in the ground, drawing pictures in the dirt, seemingly uninterested in whatever Grimmjow had to say.

Grimmjow's hackles rose yet again, and he snarled at Naruto in the most violent way he could muster, which was apparently pretty violent.

"Pay attention, asshole!" he yelled.

"You're the king, eh?" he paused for a moment, before he put the finishing touches on whatever he was drawing in the sand. He grinned widely as if it was ready to be shown to the world.

"King of what, five Hollows?" he asked, gesturing to the drawing in the dirt. It was a crude drawing of what appeared to be a hilariously disproportionate Grimmjow, with a head much bigger than its body, and a whiny pout on its face. Behind him seemed to be five Hollows who seemed to represent his followers. An immature little speech bubble coming from Grimmjow's pouting mouth read "I am the King".

The mantis Hollow, who was being uncharacteristically silent, suddenly snickered at the drawing, causing Grimmjow to glare at him with the look of hatred, before directing said glare over at Naruto.

Naruto thought he could see some faint trace of red in Grimmjow's feline mask, though he reminded himself it was probably from rage rather than embarrassment.

"W-Well..." Grimmjow said, while shaking in rage. Yep, that's definitely anger on his face. "It doesn't matter if you invite me to your group, because that won't change the fact that I'm going to kill you!" he yelled, springing into action on all four legs.

His fellow quadrupedal Hollow was there to meet his blow halfway, Grimmjow's teeth matching Naruto's claws in strength. The predatory grin on Naruto's face grew wider, while he used his free hand in an attempt to slash Grimmjow.

The panther Hollow was stunned by the speed of the attack, and if were any slower he would've been clipped by it. He put some distance between himself and his opponent, scrutinizing him carefully and waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

He was slightly surprised when the mantis Hollow he had been fighting attempted to subtly attack Naruto while he was focused in another battle. It brought two of its scythes down upon Naruto's head from behind, hoping to end the battle right there.

"Nnoitra-sama!" cried the lone Adjuchas who was the mantis Hollow's companion.

Nnoitra didn't respond to him, instead focusing on the dust cloud that had been made in his wake. When it cleared, he learned that the only thing he had made with that attack was a large indent in the sand.

It turned out that Naruto managed to out-speed Nnoitra easily, and then had managed to get a nasty kick in to the mantis' backside. Unlike Grimmjow, Naruto's kick managed to penetrate Nnoitra's defenses, and it crippled him for a few seconds as he was sent flying back to Grimmjow's position.

"What do you think you're doing, asshole," growled Grimmjow at the crumpled Nnoitra, who had fallen to the ground a mere three feet away from where Grimmjow was standing.

"What does it look like. I'm claiming this kill for myself," Nnoitra drawled back, not feeling up to listening to the panther's attitude.

"This one's mine. I saw him first, you damn mantis!"

"Like hell you did!"

"You wanna motherfuckin' die!"

"You're the one who's gonna die!"

Naruto laughed uproariously as the two Adjuchas were once again at each others throat, this time for a different reason.

"Shut the fuck up!" they both roared simultaneously at the laughing Hollow, before turning to glare at each other once again.

Naruto laughed for a while longer, before it began to trail off at a disturbingly fate rate, before all that was left was a sick grin that would make any hardened Hollow afraid.

"I think it's time to stop fucking around..." he said lowly, shadowing his face from view.

_Slam!_

Within a split-second, a shocking amount of force had impacted Nnoitra right across the torso, sending him barreling back thirty feet before he finally crashed into a small rock formation.

Grimmjow's eyes widened at the displayed speed of the attack, before he saw the fox Hollow, with a bloodthirsty grin on his face, turn his attention on him. He giggled threateningly, showing off his deep black claws for Grimmjow to behold.

"Hi..." he whispered, and that was all Grimmjow could hear before Naruto slashed his powerful claws diagonally across his torso. The panther's blood mixed with his sight as he grew rigid from the shock, before he crumpled to the ground defeated.

"Grimmjow!" yelled one of his traveling companions, though neither combatant could figure out who. It was a pure miracle that Grimmjow didn't lose consciousness from the devastating strike, though the debate remained on whether that was a good thing.

Over by the rock formation, a livid Nnoitra was emerging, looking a little worse for wear. He stalked on up to Naruto, eyes hellbent on giving him the most painful death ever.

"Whoa, you're still alive. I figured that last, _super-weak_ attack would have killed such a weak-ass Hollow like you," mocked Naruto childishly, intentionally hitting a sore spot for Nnoitra.

"Asshole, don't think you're gonna make it outta here in one piece..." he hissed, readying his scythes for an attack. With a fierce war cry, and the determination to take down this Hollow, he rushed the fox.

However, Naruto side-stepped the much slower Hollow and avoided his scythes, before delivering a vicious jab with his claws to Nnoitra's right shoulder. The attack made Nnoitra's right arms fall limp and useless, and Naruto used this time to deliver a similar slash to what he performed on Grimmjow, except this time he used his back claws.

They didn't do as much damage, due to Nnoitra's superior defense, but it did enough to cripple Nnoitra, effectively ending the fight in Naruto's favor. Nnoitra slumped to the ground similar to Grimmjow, trying and failing to move his scythes, move his legs, or do anything so he would be capable of fighting still.

"Whelp, all done..." said Naruto happily, giggling to himself a little bit. The other Hollows seemed to want to help their respective masters, but were afraid of provoking Naruto's wrath. Naruto, of course, noticed this.

"Oh, you wanna come help them..." Naruto commented slyly. He took the lack of response, and tension in the air as a "yes".

"Well, why don't you _try?_" he all but whispered, and that definitely cowed the Hollow, as a couple of them let out groans of what seemed to be fear. Naruto ignored them from that point out, turning back to the Hollows at hand.

"W-What the hell are you w-waiting for? K-Kill me..." came Nnoitra's voice, weakened from the heavy wounds he had sustained. Naruto looked at him oddly, confusion seeping into his expression.

"Why would I want to do that? It's been obvious since before that I want you to join my "group", and I intend for that to happen no matter what, regardless of whether or not I had to use force." said Naruto.

"Y-You asshole. Just kill me, now!" roared Nnoitra.

"No, I don't think I will..." said Naruto simply.

Nnoitra glared at him hatefully, but found himself unable to respond to that with words.

"Why the hell are you so eager to die? You should be thankful to me that I'm going to let you live. I usually don't show mercy to my opponents, but your strength has made you two worth recruiting." Naruto breathed slightly audibly, noticing that Nnoitra remained unconvinced.

The mantis Hollow grit his teeth, and seemed to be mulling over something insulting to say to the fox Hollow.

"Is is because you lost? Because you can't bear the shame? Or is it because you want to live a life of battle and then die to a worthy opponent?" Naruto began; his voice could be considered slightly mocking, and it showed when Nnoitra grit his teeth harder.

"I'm right, eh? Well, they may seem admirable to you, but I personally am disgusted that you don't value your life. The last thing I want is death, when I can cause so much carnage with my own two hands. It's... intoxicating, and I don't think I could bear not killing. I can tell. You enjoy battle, and more importantly, you enjoy killing... just as much as I do. The only difference between us is that you wish for death." Naruto explained, his tone all serious for once in his life.

Nnoitra said nothing.

"You have two choices here, and neither of them involve you dying. I'm not that nice, and I'm not going to give you want you want. Your first choice is to be left here alone, alive but defeated. Your second choice is to come with me, and live a life of battle as a very high-ranking officer in my kingdom. I have enemies. _Lots_ of enemies. You like battle and power, and I can give you both of those things. I'll even turn a blind eye if you decide to... _get rid_ of one of my own, unless it's someone who's equal or superior to you. This is the best I can offer, all you need is take it..." Naruto whispered the last part, and his melodious prospect was beginning to ring true to Nnoitra.

Naruto grinned. Nnoitra was beginning to shake, in what Naruto could only guess was both anger and conflict.

"Tch, whatever. If you won't kill me here, then the best I can do is take this. Don't expect me to be all chummy with all of you, or even like doing this in the first place!" he sneered.

Naruto sneered back, but this one seemed more like a smirk than anything.

Before anyone could say anything, they heard a rustling noise come from behind them.

"Well, looks like Sleeping Beauty is beginning to come around." guffawed Naruto, as Grimmjow was struggling to lie on his back.

"I've been up, and I heard every single word between you and the mantis over there, including his little prissy-ass tangent about being killed in battle," Grimmjow muttered.

"Then, I take it you heard about my little kingdom, and all the things I can offer..." Naruto declared.

Grimmjow groaned.

"Yeah, I heard it, but I'm not so willing to believe that you can give us power."

"Well, if you're talking battle power, I'm sure all the Hollows that I already have under my sphere of influence can help you hone your skills. If you're talking a position of power, I was planning to have four "generals" to exist just below me and command all my regular vassals. Right now, I have three open spots in that rank, and you two would be the next most powerful Hollows in the kingdom, so I was definitely going to enlist you as the second and third generals."

Grimmjow struggled to look at the fox.

"Can you help me achieve Vasto Lorde status?" he asked.

"Who knows. The Vasto Lorde status is farther than you can possibly imagine. I've even eaten one, and still I didn't actually evolve into that status. When it comes down to it, I can't really help you with your own abilities. Every Hollow is different, and we can't train one another in the art of battle. Whether or not you evolve into Vasto Lorde is really up to you." Naruto said wistfully.

Grimmjow was about to close his eyes, but he realized a shock that snapped him into reality.

"You've... you've eaten a Vasto Lorde?" he yelled at the fox Adjuchas.

"Yeah... it was some ox fucker that had taken up residence in the cave complex where we live. Me and my first general managed to kill him, and I took the power for myself. Still wasn't enough to make me rise, though..." Naruto said. He kicked the ground where he stood, clearly frustrated by his lack of progress.

"Will... there be more Vasto Lordes... ones to eat?" he asked.

"Probably. I have a lot of enemies. What, am I swaying the stubborn panther Hollow's opinion?" he teased, before staring at Grimmjow and narrowing his eyes in a mocking stare.

"This changes everything. If I have an easier chance to become a Vasto Lorde, then I will gladly give up my position as King of these losers over here..." he said, pointing to the five lower level Hollows who had been following Grimmjow.

"Fine, I'll come with you. I'll be your so-called general or whatever. I really don't give a shit, as long as I can better my chances of evolving myself. I'll even ally myself with the likes of this fucker here..." he said, gesturing to Nnoitra.

"Fuck you, ya damn cat!" Nnoitra hissed.

"Fuck off, assface. I'll kill your damn ass dead!" Grimmjow roared.

"You wanna fucking try, bitch. I'll kill you so fast you won't even noticed that you died!"

Naruto laughed raucously. "I can tell already that you two are not going to get along." He then noticed Grimmjow's followers and Nnoitra's lone follower, still slightly nervous even though their leaders swore allegiance to this fox Hollow.

"You guys, since your leaders decided to join me, that means that you guys answer to me now. Let's have a little chat about your... _initiation,_" he laughed evilly. Somehow, the other Hollows knew they were fucked.

* * *

_Two months later..._

"So, let me get this straight. You have a massive grudge on your home village from when you were a human, and you attempted to destroy it, but then the Soul Society kept on getting in the way? So, in order to destroy this "Konoha" and Soul Society, that is what all these guys are for?" asked Grimmjow, gesturing to the thousand or so normal Hollows, as well as a few Adjuchas.

"Well, it's more detailed than that, but that's pretty much it in a nutshell," replied Naruto. Things were beginning to look up for him. He had gained almost a couple thousand Hollows throughout this trip, and since they were about to get back and begin work on some organization to his kingdom, Naruto begin to fill in Grimmjow and Nnoitra on what was going on.

"Look, you can see the plateau now. Our home is in those cave complexes there..." he explained, pointing to the massive plateau that jutted out of the landscape. The fully recovered Grimmjow and Nnoitra stared at it, an unreadable expression on both of their masks.

As they got closer to it though, Naruto begin to see that something was off. It was too... quiet, for there to be anything going on in the cave complex. Not to mention, he couldn't feel any reiatsu in them.

Without warning anyone, he rushed quickly over to the cave complex, leaving everyone in his dust. He reached the base of the plateau in about ten minutes, and ascended it in less than five.

He sniffed the air, smelling old dried blood mixed in with the normal earthy smells. He then noticed a familiar presence, sitting on a particularly large rock outside of the cave complex.

"Ul-Ulquiorra..." Naruto stuttered out, shocked at the bat Hollow, who was sitting over there by his lonesome, the look on his face even gloomier than his normal one.

Ulquiorra looked at him, though he seemed to have already noticed his presence beforehand.

"Naruto... I'm glad you're back. We have had a little _situation_ occur while you were gone." he said calmly, as if the severity of the situation wasn't affecting him at all.

"What... happened here? Why is there the smell of blood mixed in with the area? Why are you here all by yourself, and why don't I feel any reiatsu other than yours in this area?" he exclaimed.

"We got crushed, that's what happened. By _them..._" he said cryptically.

"_Them?_ Who the hell are _they?_ But, from the looks of things, you make it sound like we were attacked." said Naruto.

"We were attacked. By this Hollow kingdom from across the sea. We were no match for them, not with our current numbers. They have a very _special _way of fighting. This Reino Humanoide. It was an act of revenge, really. That Vasto Lorde you killed when we took over this place, their king was his _older brother_..." Ulquiorra finished.

Naruto's eyes widened.

"We were destroyed utterly. Every one of those Hollows you sent my way while you were on your trip was killed by Dreendo's forces. He didn't let anyone live through this."

Naruto's eyes narrowed.

"Then, why did he let you live?"

Ulquiorra stared at him stoically, before deciding to tell him the full story.

_Flashback..._

_Ulquiorra sighed the best he could through his wounded throat. They were beaten, and everyone knew it too. Well, him and everyone on the winning side, seeing as everyone except him had been killed._

_The bat Hollow weakly looked up into the eyes of his attacker, the only thing visible through his veiled cloak. They were scornful, mocking, as if they were judging him just because of who was, an animal Hollow._

_One of Dreendo's guards emerged from the cave complex, looking as if he had news to report._

_"Dreendo-sama, this was indeed all they had as far as population. The fox Hollow who killed your brother is nowhere to be seen, as he is nowhere in this cave complex." it said._

_Dreendo seemed to growl underneath the cloak, before he looked down at Ulquiorra._

_"Dammit, he could be anywhere by now. But, at least I've found one of the two culprits behind my brother's death..." he said, looking intensely at Ulquiorra._

_"Sir, should we prepare to execute this Hollow?" asked one of the guards flanking Dreendo. The king's eyes widened in anger, before he grabbed the guard by the shoulders roughly._

_"You FOOL! Do you not realize that this is the partner to that damnable fox Hollow! If we kill him now, we may never be able to locate him and avenge my brother. We WILL leave him alive! Do you understand me?" he ordered, released the shaken guard from his grip._

_"Y-Yes sir. I'm very sorry, Sir!" the guard stuttered._

_"Well, whatever. As long as you get it..." dismissed Dreendo, as he turned his attention back to Ulquiorra. The king leaned down up to Ulquiorra's face, who could feel the hot, putrid breath roll off the Vasto Lorde._

_"Say, kid. You and that partner of yours have caused me some serious trouble, and not just because you killed my brother. I want to be sure I make the both of you pay, but I don't know where the fox is." Dreendo paused._

_"So... here's the plan. I will be back in three months time for finish the job, and you will be the bait for the fox Hollow. If he honestly wants his kingdom to flourish, he will be back, even if it is just for you. I want to kill you together see, but if there's nothing left for the fox Hollow here he won't be coming back." he finished._

_He released Ulquiorra from his grip, and Ulquiorra thought he saw Dreendo do something before he blacked out from his wounds._

_Flashback End..._

"I've been here alone ever since that incident two months ago, waiting for you to return." He stood up, and walked over the edge of the plateau, and looked over it to see that most of the Hollows that Naruto had recruited had arrived at the base.

"And, you've brought many, many Hollows to be part of your kingdom. Dreendo mentioned something about you attacking him before the three months time is over. Now that we have forces to fight with, do you wish to lead an attack on him?" he asked.

Naruto shook his head.

"We'll need all the time we can get in order to prepare for this, and it's much easier to fight a defensive war than an offensive war. You'll have to go over all the information you received to me and two other Hollows I have bestowed a high rank on. Plus, we can't attack them right now, we have no idea how big this ocean is, or where they came from in the first place. It's best we bide our time and prepare for the invasion when they come."

"I hoped you would say something like that. It's just easier this way." Ulquiorra concured.

"Yes, we have a war to prepare for, but our key concern is getting our new folks settled in. We can go over wartime strategies once we have. Meet me in my throne room in a few days, and we'll discuss our next course of action." he ordered, his tone all sane and professional for once.

Ulquiorra nodded in confirmation, before Naruto turned away from him and headed into the cave complex.

His thoughts went adrift as the darkness began to shadow him from view.

"_I don't have time to have fun with this type of battle. I need to be all serious. This new enemy poses a threat to both of my dreams, and I need to focus all my energy on destroying this threat before it can. I just don't know if I can suppress my instincts. I'll just have to remind myself to save it my zest for battle for Konoha and the Shinigami. I really hope that works." _Naruto's unsure musings cut off right there, when he disappeared into the next doorway.

* * *

_One month later..._

"Sir, I believe it is time. The promised day you would go back and destroy the fox Hollow for good, along with that bat Hollow..." said one of Dreendo's guards, the moment when the day ended, and Dreendo was ready to hear the day's report.

Dreendo smiled serenely, and the guards were left wondering whether he was in a good mood. He had been waiting for this day for quite some time.

"Is that so? It's that time now, to destroy those two damn pests in one fell swoop. If only it were that easy. As much as I would love to just swoop in there and deal the finishing blow myself, the possibility remains that he could have build an army. We'll be sending _them_ in first, and with luck they'll destroy each other, and then I can drop in and kill the two Hollows I'm after." Dreendo explained.

The guards said nothing in response to that, until Dreendo turned back to them in order to explain something to them.

"I'm going out to prepare our secret weapon for our invasion. I'm placing all of you on standby for the time being. Wait until I get back; I'll have your orders ready then." he said, as he got up from his throne and walked down the hallway.

The king could faintly see the guards saluting out of the corner of his eye, but he ignored it and walked out of the door regardless, looking back to see the guards return to their stiff positions.

He smirked. Mindless drones who would do anything for him.

He continued to walk down the halls of the stone castle, ignoring soldiers who would greet him out of respect as he continued down the castle. Once he got to a certain point however, all the guards ceased, and he was left alone in order to enter a certain wing of the castle.

The Vasto Lorde followed the curved hallway that ran adjacent to his throne room, until he arrived at a thick set of wooden doors. He opened them with very little effort, and emerged in a much wider hallway almost as large as his throne room.

Two lone guards were stationed at a very small door on the opposite side of the room, and they saluted at he went through to find a dingy, narrow hallway barely twenty feet long. An even dingier door lay at the end of the hall, sparsely lit by the two torches on the wall.

Dreendo grinned wickedly, thinking of what lie behind that door. It made him giddy, oh so very giddy. He stroked the handle to the door in an almost perverse manner, testing the feel of it and remarking that he never got old.

He opened the door with a loud creak, feeling the presence of an intense hatred waft all over his body. Rather than make him disgruntled, it pleased him greatly, and he showed it with his wide grin.

He could see the hundreds of eyes on him, the only thing visible in the dark.

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. How are we doing this fine evening?"

* * *

Chapter done!

Things are heating up to be sure! You'll have to wait until next Chapter to find out just what it Dreendo's weapon. Personally, I satisfied with this Chapter. Well, more satisfied than I usually am for a Chapter, so please Review!

In other news, I'm thinking of starting my third story here soon. The thing is, it might not be one that is posted on my profile. I have three story summaries on my profile right now, and three which are not posted. One of the stories is outside the Naruto fandom, so I'm not exclusive to Naruto and Naruto crossovers anymore. I'll keep you posted on the new story, and let everyone know when I post the first Chapter.

That's all for now, so seeya next time.

_**Alban55**_


	22. Esclavos

**Ppsh**: Tell that to Kubo. He's the one who creating the whole "Hollow kingdom" concept with Baraggan's backstory. I just took his original idea and ran with it. With that being said, I guess you can say Naruto's motivation for building a kingdom is as much as a "take that" approach for Baraggan as much as it is a desire for military power. There's also the fact that Naruto doesn't have his Kage Bunshin anymore. No matter how powerful he is (or so he believes), he can't completely destroy Konoha without alerting the Shinigami and drawing Captain-level opponents there, unless he has some sort of super attack. He's going to need to be in more than one place if he wants to destroy Konoha and get undetected by the Shinigami.]

**Angels will bleed from pain**: Aizen will make an appearance later.

**Dragon's Wraith**: Aizen will appear, though its a stretch to say he'll be playing a major role. To make things simpler, I'll explain things like this. I'm not going to completely ignore the Bleach canon. There will be a short time when events in this story will mirror canon events. I guess you can call this very long pre-canon story to be Part 1, and the canon section and everything after it to be the much longer Part 2.

Here's another Chapter of Amenaza. Hope you all enjoy it, and don't forget to review please.

* * *

Chapter 22: Esclavos

Slaves.

Slaves are what lined the rotten walls of the chamber where Dreendo was currently at. Packed into tight confines and forced to face deplorable conditions, slaves were the secret weapons of all the Reino Humanoide, because these slaves weren't just any slaves. They were powerful, merciless in combat, and fearsome. Yet, every single one of them fell to the Reino Humanoide at some point in their lives, was captured, and placed under these terrible conditions.

And the one thing that united them was that every single one of them was an animal-based Hollow. From snake-based Hollows to wolf-based Hollows, every type of animal Hollow imaginable was held in captivity. There was not a single humanoid Hollow slave that existed within the walls of this chamber.

There were dozens of cells on either side of the long chamber, each one stuffed to the brim with dozens, if not hundreds of Hollows, crammed together so tightly that in some of the cells, the prisoners couldn't move at all.

There were leaks all over the ceiling and the walls, oozing an unholy green slime at a rate that would make one wonder what was behind these walls. In addition to that, moss was growing all over the stone walls, some toxic to Hollows and causing a hideous skin reaction towards them.

The only source of light was a small torch hanging limply in the center of the room, but even a human could smell the death and rotting flesh that permeated the room, giving it a foul-smelling aura.

One could call this place a prison, but it was probably more resembling of a incredibly dark, incredibly cramped stable. Its entire decor seemed to give this off, as if the kingdom was treating these Hollows no better than the animals that they were.

The killing intent and reiatsu wafted over Dreendo, but he did nothing but smile broadly at their feeble attempts to make some kind of impression upon him. He shut the door behind him, and panned his eyes around the room, trying to get a rough count of how many slaves there were, though he knew that there would be too many to count.

The eyes followed him around the room as he walked into the farther portion of the chamber, his feet making a slight creak in the rotten floor. He eyed one Hollow giving him a particularly nasty look, which he cowed with a smirk, and a release of his reiatsu.

The eyes disappeared at the display of his impressive reiatsu, retreated to what pitiful state they could muster in the face of their master. He gave the entire room a strange cross between a smirk and a sneer, before he arrived at the very end of the chamber, where a door very different than the rest lay.

It was the only one in the room that was stationed perpendicular to the rest, and it appeared to be in much better shape than the ones that were on the side of the room, though would still be considered rotten with how little care this place received.

There was a red insignia for the Reino Humanoide on the door, with a sort of tail-like thing protruding out from it to function as a doorknob. Dreendo knew the occupant inside was aware of his presence near the door, judging from the slightly heavy reiatsu that now blanketed the air.

Dreendo wasn't phased, however. Without any sort of hesitation, he opened the door, making a slight creak as he did so, and laid his eyes upon the rebellious occupant inside.

The humanoid king stepped inside, and looked at the figure chained to the wall. It had a shockingly lean and curvaceous body, which was rare for an Adjuchas. You could easily tell it was female, judging from the large protrusions on its chest. There were four chains emerging from the Hollow hole on its. . . . _sweet spot_, connecting the Hollow to the wall in a disturbingly uncomfortable position.

The figure turned its head upwards, showing an angular mask that showed two rows of incredibly sharp teeth, even by Hollow standards. It had numerous gashes all over its body, and the smell of dried blood was far more pungent over in this area. If one squinted hard enough, they could see the numerous blood stains that lined the entire cell, even in the dark. This Hollow was rebellious by nature, so it was punished on a much more regular basis. It's position, and the blood stain indicated that it has been tortured repeatedly in the past.

Dreendo could feel the creature glare at him, the look of pure, unadulterated hatred visible on its visage made even him cringe slightly on the inside. It was so powerful, and he could tell that it wanted nothing more than to rip him to shreds in the most violent way possible, while making sure he felt as much pain as possible at the same time.

Nevertheless, he was a powerful Vasto Lorde, and didn't let the killing intent get to him. Rather, he adopted an even wider grin at the sight of the miserable creature, amused by its pain.

He placed a shrouded hand on his hip, his mocking expression and pose stirring even more ire in the Hollow, if that were even possible.

"How are we feeling today... _Harribel?"_ he mocked, saying her name in the most sarcastic, yet sugary manner possible. It made the said Hollow want to vomit in pure disgust.

Harribel attempted to croak out of response, yet couldn't through her ruptured throat. What came out instead was a throaty, incomprehensible gurgle, one that made the king laugh uproariously in amusement.

"What a miserable creature you are, Harribel. What happened to the calm, cool, somewhat arrogant disposition you had while you were facing me in battle a few years ago. Those failed attempts at rebellion must have quelled your spirit. You understand that it hopeless, a _besti_ like you will never be able to overcome the perfect humanoid Hollows," he mocked, grabbing her chin and forcing her to look directly into his eyes. She grimaced when she saw the sheer cruelty in them, and was instantly reminded of what she had been going through these past few years.

Harribel didn't attempt a response to his words however, and instead she spat a glob of bloody saliva and phlegm all over Dreendo's coat, an act which thoroughly enraged the king.

"Go to hell!" he roared, kicking her roughly in the mask, multiple times for that matter. A sickening crack was heard every time he brought down his foot, and the other Hollows receded even farther into their cages, trying to be as small as possible in the presence of the rabid king.

The shark Hollow recoiled roughly from the blows, falling to her knees and coughing up a good portion of blood. But, Dreendo wasn't about to let her be and wallow in her misery just yet.

"Have you forgotten that I can terminate you and all the other slaves at any given time," he said, roughly grabbing a strange medallion attached to her neck by a chain. She grimaced at the contact, showing a look of pure emotional pain.

"This chain is embued with my special reiatsu, and I can release it at any time. I hold your life in my hands, my dear Harribel. I suggest you don't take that lightly..." he hissed, his hot, putrid breath washing over her in a wave, which almost made her gag in response.

Harribel pulled away from him, looking throughly repulsed and angry at the development. Dreendo eyed her with pure racist contempt, until he accepted it and turned his back to her.

"Anyway, regardless of your constant acts of disrespect, besti, I will admit that you are the most powerful in my army of slaves, hence why I have given you the lowly title as leader of these slaves. I have not come here to taunt or torture you this time around. Instead, I have a little _assignment_ for you and the rest of the slaves." Dreendo explained, the whole time keeping his back to her.

Harribel looked up again, no curiosity staining her features, but a realization that she would have to follow through with whatever he ordered her to perform, consequences be damned. It was almost like she was afraid to hear what she was doing, because she already knew that it would not be pleasant.

At the very worst, she would be sent to her death.

"The details of this assignment are unimportant. Simply fight where I tell you to fight and kill who I tell you to kill, and there won't be any sort of problem. Disobey or fail me in any way, and I will not hesitate to kill you. This isn't a particularly big job, so I'm only taking the Hollows from three of my sixteen slave houses that I have throughout the island. We will depart to the mainland in T-minus twenty-four hours where we will engage another, much weaker kingdom in battle. I'm shipping you out on the Leviathan Hollows tonight." Dreendo finished. He gave one last fleeting look at Harribel, before he flicked his coat and turned his back on her.

Dreendo swept out of the chamber without another glance at her or any of the other slaves. Oh, how she hated him. She hated him _so _much. This racist piece of shit is the reason her life was so fucked up, and all because she was an animal Hollow. She hated him, and the other slave Hollows did as well.

She knew that God wouldn't answer some kind of unholy Hollow, but still, she prayed with all her might to be rescued from this torment. It was the only thing that had kept her going...

* * *

"So, it seems we're going to have to make do with this small amount of Hollows..." said Naruto, who was currently perched in his future throne room along with Ulquiorra, who was going over some basic Hollow warfare tactics with his king. Things weren't looking so good, and against his will, Naruto had the sinking impression that running away from this place would simply be the best option.

But, if he did that, how would he ever become a powerful king in Hueco Mundo? If he was afraid of some other kingdom that wanted to bring him down, he would never be successful.

"Well, with the forces down from their last attack, we're completely reliant on the couple thousand or so Hollows that you brought back from your trip. Speaking of which, you were mentioning something about filling two spots of this "Four Generals" idea that you had." Ulquiorra replied back.

Naruto grinned widely, as he recalled that he had gained two fine fighters to add to his forces. Such a thing would already improve their chances, regardless of how slight that may be.

"Yeah, Grimmjow and Nnoitra. They show a lot of potential in addition to their already existing power, if I do say so myself. I told them to meet me in this chamber before we went, so they should be getting here pretty soon..."

Ulquiorra looked at his king, reflecting on his recent words. It may have been his imagination, but did it seem like his king was getting... smarter? He was beginning to show signs of stress from this entire ordeal, and he was notably harder, and more gaunt than when he first met him. It was like all his insecurities were beginning to show throughout the front. Not that this did anything for his ways. He seemed even more lustful for battle, and was much more high-strung. If he kept going like this, it wouldn't be good. It was like some semblance of sanity he had had before was slowly but surely disappearing.

Ulquiorra was cut off from his thoughts by the creaking of the wooden door, and he could visibly make out two figures coming through. They seemed to be at each other's throats though, with their natural weapons drawn and them yelling curse words at each other.

Naruto grinned even wider, before he randomly launched a Cero from his mouth. The orange ball of light went streamed towards the two new Hollow, and the two were lucky enough to detect it in time and jump out of the way. The ball of light almost completely obliterated the door in a blast of orange, and Ulquiorra idly wondered how they were going to replace that.

"What the fuck was that for?" they yelled at the same time, at their king who now had the biggest shit-eating grin Ulquiorra had ever seen on his face at the moment. He resisted the urge to sigh, remarking in his mind that he _would_ do something like this to his newest underlings.

"Just testing ya. And I wanted to see if I could piss you off a little bit..." he commented, much to the ire of Grimmjow and Nnoitra, who now seemed to want to tear out Naruto's throat.

Ulquiorra scoffed. So much for his king getting smarter.

"Anyway, you two, I was just telling Ulquiorra here," he gestured to his stoic right-hand man, whom Grimmjow and Nnoitra both scowled at. "that we really don't have enough force to stick it to what is an apparently powerful kingdom. Though, we'll have to stand and fight, because if we don't, this kingdom will remain a thorn in our sides until one of us eventually destroys the other." he stated.

Grimmjow and Nnoitra looked unimpressed.

"What kind of cowardly bullshit is that? We should just go crush them right now with brute force. It's the only way to really get things done around here..." Grimmjow muttered.

An absurdly wide, and clearly fake smile came on Naruto's face. The eyes under his mask became slightly bloodshot, and the pupils shook with barely suppressed insanity.

"Okay, that's the best idea in the world..." he exclaimed in an overly-happy tone. "In fact, I'm so confident that this will work, why don't you just barge into that little kingdom of theirs, and take it by storm all by yourself. How does that sound, eh?" he laughed, the noise sounding oddly vacant and empty. No one else dared make a sound.

"..."

A scary, half-lidded glare was what replaced Naruto's smile, and everyone thought that Naruto was going to burn a hole straight through Grimmjow with the way he was looking at him.

"I thought so..." he said lowly.

"_What the fuck? Is he bipolar?"_ Grimmjow thought in bewilderment, thinking back to a few moments ago when he happily blasted him with a Cero, and looking at the seriously pissed off Hollow now.

"Anyway, it's been established that we will not pursue a direct attack. We will let them come to us, and will have to somehow use this cave complex and the terrain to our advantage. That's basically what we've been going over, Grimmjow... Nnoitra..." Naruto said.

The four Hollows sat in a tense silence for a few seconds.

"By the way, Naruto. I think it's imperative for you to know something about this particular kingdom." Ulquiorra said, breaking the silence that had fallen over the room.

The fox Hollow turned to Ulquiorra, a questioning look on his face. In response, the bat Hollow across from him cleared his throat, and told him what had happened.

"An odd thing about this kingdom is that the denizens of it will never actually fight personally. In fact, we were crushed completely by it, without them actually lifting a finger." Ulquiorra explained.

A cold chill seemed to go down the spines of all three Hollows.

"What the fuck. How were you beaten then, if their entire fighting force didn't even attack?" Naruto questioned. Ulquiorra could practically feel his ire rising, and his manic anger, one that wanted to watch the world burn, was reigning supreme.

Ulquiorra wasn't phased.

"Let me elaborate. This kingdom seems to have a very strange... _policy._ It is that of a racist approach to anything that isn't a humanoid Hollow. Apparently, these Hollows believe solely that being a Hollow more resembling of a human means that they are smarter and stronger. Along with this racist attitude comes the keeping of thousands of animal-based Hollow slaves. It was them who defeated us in battle, these animal slaves forced to fight for this kingdom..."

Naruto calmed down completely, letting a smirk come onto his face and a snort of laughter escape his lips.

"What, do these guys get a mad boner for humans or something? If anything, in this world of Hollows, being more like a human should be a hindrance rather than a blessing." Naruto guffawed.

"I don't know any sort of history that goes on in this Kingdom, but I do know that these animal Hollows are a massive threat to us, and even if we manage to draw out the humanoid Hollows into fighting, they are a large threat as well." Ulquiorra concluded.

Naruto seemed to be contemplating that at least a little bit, though he became unfocused as he began to walk slowly around the room. He stopped at one of the Hollow mask torches flanking either side of the large, stone chair in the back. He reached out his front paw, lightly touching the torch while he seemed to go into very deep thought.

"Pieces of shit..." he muttered to himself, though Ulquiorra, Grimmjow, and Nnoitra all heard it.

They stood in silence for a little while, the only sounds being the deep, slow breathing of Naruto, who had his eyes closed and was apparently very deep in thought.

He stroked the bony material of the mask lightly, noticing it resembled a bear of some kind. The other torch's mask resembled a humanoid Hollow, and its flame was noticably dimmer than the one he was currently touching.

The Hollows heard a distant crash, like some kind of boulder falling down a gorge inside the cave complex. It wasn't uncommon for things like this to occur, especially while living in such a treacherous cave filled with many deep pits and gorges. But, with one so sudden right now, it seemed that some of the new recruits were beginning to get settled into the cave complex.

Naruto opened his eyes slowly, his signature psychopathic grin coming onto his face yet again. He clutched the torch a little firmer, to the point where the mask began to crack underneath the pressure.

The other three Hollows heard some light snickering, though its volume didn't make it any less disturbing. The torch finally gave in to the pressure, and snapped in half just as the laughter stopped. The eerie fire was instantly put out, and Naruto laughed yet again.

"I know _just_ what to do!" he exclaimed, turning back to his generals at breakneck speed, looking very happy at his new idea.

* * *

It had taken a few days for Dreendo to prepare everything for the second invasion because of several delays that he was having with the slaves. He had beaten them severely after their little failures, and he made sure that there would be no more screw-ups from this point on. Usually, he had the slaves just do manual labor around the entire island. Their fighting purpose was rarely exploited, and when it was, they were almost always out-of-practice and weakened.

It was nothing a good beating couldn't clear up though.

Ships didn't exist in Hueco Mundo, and as such they had to use the many large, leviathan Hollows he had under his reign to transport him, a portion of his army, and the slaves to the mainland. But it turned out that the mindless Hollows were seriously acting up when it was time to leave, so he had to put the stupid beasts into submission.

By the time they reached the mainland, his temper was running high, and he simply wanted to destroy the fox and bat right there and go back.

The king stepped out of the largest blue leviathan onto the dirt, watching his army and the slaves emerge from the smaller ones. With limited interest, he watched all the leviathans sink back into the sea, to when they would be called again.

The plateau where the detestable Hollows would presumably lie was not that far, and he detected some semi-reiatsu come from the inside of the mountain. Good, that meant the fox was probably back, and from the looks of things, he had brought some fresh new Hollows. Just as he expected.

Still, it wouldn't be enough to put a dent in even his slaves, much less the portion of the army that he brought with him.

"Harribel..." he ordered lowly, as the leader of the slaves got off the leviathan. Outside the dank, dark slave chamber, Dreendo took in her full appearance.

She was around nine feet from head to toe, with a slender, feminine build, which was surprising for an Adjuchas. She was covered in head to toe in a white, bony material, except for a few patches along her sides. There appeared to be several spines of some sort sticking out along her body, and a large fin sticking out from her shark-like mask. She had two rows of incredibly sharp teeth along her mask, and even by Hollow standards, they looked like they could rip through anything. Her eyes underneath the mask were just like any other Hollows, though they looked considerably more compassionate than a normal Hollow's. What looked like gills existed on her left hip, and to complete her appearance, her hands were enormous bony blades that sort of looked like a shark's top half.

"_She would look dazzling if Hollows had any sense of beauty whatever..."_ Dreendo mused in his mind, chuckling slightly to himself as he remembered that Hollows were completely asexual. They couldn't reproduce after all, but somehow, all those now useless reproductive organs carried over from their human lives.

She walked awkwardly towards them, many cramps existing in her frame after being held in such a compromising position for so long. She looked at Dreendo with no small amount of hatred, but refrained from attacking him, knowing his power was far greater than hers, as well as noting that all the guards seemed to tense up at her presence. Pathetic cowards. Now that she was free, they didn't think anything would stop her from goring through them like wet paper.

Well, they were partially right.

The slaves behind her were dazed, probably at going so long without being held captive. She felt for them, she truly did, but their day of reckoning wasn't today. Again, they would be forced to fight his enemies, so they can live on and wait for the day when they'll be able to escape. No matter how far away it was, there would come a time when Dreendo's kingdom would fall, and they would be there to rise from the ashes and achieve their freedom.

She was brought forth from her musings when one of the guards jabbed her in the ass with a sharp limb. Why did Dreendo always have to pick the ones with the painful limbs to be the ones to watch over the slaves?

"Get yer ass movin', Harribel. Didn't ya hear Dreendo-sama order you to tear this place a new asshole?" drawled the incredibly large, stupid looking guard, the thoughtless look on his face oddly fitting.

"Don't touch me..." she hissed lowly, resisting the urge to tear off his head. The guard looked baffled and appalled, as if he couldn't believe that a _besti_ just mouthed off and threatened him.

"Eh? What whuzzat, bitch? You talkin' back to me?" he slurred, spreading putrid, green deposits of spittle in Harribel's face. They seemed slightly acidic, but not enough to even phase the shark Hollow.

Before anything could escalate, Dreendo's voice rang throughout the entire area, effectively cancelling any sort of fight that would inevitably happen between the two.

"Caymin, shut the fuck up and get back in line, dammit! And Harribel, you'd best be following my orders, and move all the slaves up the plateau and kill every Hollow there!" he shouted.

Caymin looked ready to resist his king's orders, but he fell back in line with the other guards, after a nasty glare at Harribel, which she gladly returned at him.

Harribel sighed. The slaves didn't need any prodding. Dreendo's booming voice was enough for them to begin reluctantly scaling the plateau next to them. Harribel joined them after a few seconds, digging her sharp hands in the rock face. It yielded surprisingly easily, and she began her climb, some other slaves taking up the rear behind her.

"Oh, and all of you! Leave the bat Adjuchas and the fox Adjuchas alive. If either one of them is killed in the process of destroying this place, you will all be terminated." Dreendo's booming voice rang throughout every slave's ears.

The slaves relayed that information to those who didn't hear it, or those who were too stupid to comprehend it. Not that there were many mindless Hollows in the group. The slaves consisted mostly of Adjuchas, and some intelligent normal Hollows. There were mindless Hollows at one point in time, but they were weeded out easily. They were killed by guards when they attempted to eat each the other Hollows.

Harribel heard her stomach growl. She really wasn't getting enough food. Dreendo at least made sure to prevent any regressions from Adjuchas to Gillian with at least a little something to eat, but Harribel wasn't so sure he knew what he was doing. Food was becoming scarce in recent years. Eating each other was strictly forbidden in order to prevent a loss of numbers, and most of their food came from war prisoners that he deemed separate from slaves. It was fitting for the racists. Half of the animal Hollows became slaves, and the other half became food to keep the slaves alive.

Speaking of war, Harribel knew that there would be more than a few casualties that came from this. When fighting another group, Dreendo always underestimated their power, thinking he could finish it will small numbers. It was likely that this kingdom was far stronger than what Dreendo gave them credit for.

She looked at the Hollow next to her. He was a young Hollow, only captured recently, though he seemed to be much weaker and frail than any of the other slaves. And even though he was only captured recently, he knew just as well as she did that some of them would die in this battle.

His face was stoic, but for a brief moment, Harribel thought she could see a small glimpse of sadness in his eyes, and wondered how the evil look of Hollow's eyes can actually be something tragic. But, as soon as she saw it, it was gone, a fleeting emotion in this entire ordeal.

Fleeting... in a way, it described each and every one of their lives.

* * *

Chapter 22 is done!

Now, before anyone comments, I know that Harribel is supposed to be a Vasto Lorde instead of an Adjuchas, regardless of how much I hate her filler backstory. Remember, that this takes place long before she could've evolved at all.

Speaking of Harribel, I truly fucking hate her design in her anime flashback. Yeah, I know its filler and all, but she lacks a complete mask (part of her face is shown), and she has no visible Hollow hole. So, I gave her a new design, at least as an Adjuchas. It may be somewhat similar, but I've fixed all the intrinsic flaws Harribel's design had before.

Also, if anyone's confused with how I'm spelling the Arrancar, I'm using the recent romanization brought about by the recent databook. So, it's Baraggan instead of Barragan, and Gilga instead of Jiruga for Nnoitra's last name.

See ya,

**_Alban55_**


	23. La Trampa

**Lord Edric**: Its quite some time before canon, considering that Shinji isn't even a Captain at this point.

**gold viper**: That's because Sora was a normal Hollow. Go back and look at Grimmjow's flashback. It was stated that D-Roy could neither advance or regress in the evolutionary line because Grimmjow broke his mask.

Anyway, we have a very special update for all you people. It turns out that I have finally updated my One Twentieth of a Whole, and I have a poll with regards my third story.

* * *

Chapter 23: La Trampa

_Right after Naruto's return..._

_Behind Naruto's, and formerly Torobic's gilded throne, lay a great secret passed down to the now deceased ox Hollow. It was something that could tear two brothers apart, start a war between nations, and bring all of Hueco Mundo to its knees._

_No one other than Dreendo and Torobic knew about any of this, and even Dreendo was at a loss as to where he got it, or where he was hiding it. And, rather than remain within his younger brother's graces, the king's racist attitude, and what this secret held caused the two brothers to drift apart from one another._

_It remained in its hidden spot until Torobic was usurped from the cave, and Ulquiorra stumbled across a secret passageway behind Naruto's throne, while the bat Hollow was alone in the cave complex. He had taken a temporary residence in the throne room, after he disposed of all the bodies left behind in Dreendo's wake. He was also archiving the various hazards and terrain of the cave complex at that moment, trying to figure what could be used to their advantage, in case something like this happened in the future._

_It was as he was checking behind the throne for anything, that he stumbling across this passageway._

_Ulquiorra wasn't stupid, so he wasn't about to gallivanting off alone into the eternal darkness of this narrow passageway. But, he had a feeling that Naruto would pleased to know that there might be something of use back there._

_So, the bat told him. A few hours directly after he had gotten back, and the disbelief of getting attacked had melted away into pure, righteous anger, Ulquiorra told him about the secret tunnel directly behind the throne. Naruto, while still steaming from the recent revelations, accepted the information whole-heartedly. He told Ulquiorra to go control his new disoriented followers, while he went off and explored the passageway alone._

_Anyway, the fox Hollow found Ulquiorra's words to be true, as when he pushed the heavy throne to the side, there was a concealed passageway, large enough for a Vasto Lorde or a small Adjuchas like himself to squeeze through._

_"Looks like this is it..." he said to himself, pressing a paw or two against the walls of the passageway, to make sure that they wouldn't cave in on him. When he decided that it was safe, he stepped inside the passage._

_He narrowed his eyes, as after a few yards into the tunnel, he came across a few crude carvings along the cave wall, all of the same thing. They were of a chimera-like shape, with a hole in its chest to signify that the being was in fact a Hollow._

_The young Hollow brushed one of the carvings as went by, noting that there was nothing special to them rather than their decorative purpose. Continuing further into the narrow passage, he noticed a few torches along the wall that glowed with an eerie blue flame, and more and more carving of the strange chimera-like Hollow that he had been seeing up to this point._

_Then, the passage began to become more twisted, and Naruto was seriously wondering how far it extended. As he neared the end, the torches disappeared for a while, until they reappeared when he reached the end, and emerged in a large chamber, almost the size of his throne room._

_"How can someplace so big be kept a secret down here?" he asked himself, noting that some of the items in the chamber seemed to be untampered with for what looked like years._

_Speaking of items, there really weren't too many in the chamber, though. There were many torches, similar to the ones outside, that lines the walls to create a circular pattern. Again, there were more pictures, but this time they were not of the chimera. In addition, they were similar to mosaics or frescos, being much more elaborate than the primitive cave drawings he had seen up to this point._

_The mosaics showed a bunch of angular, almost cubist shapes, but the one at the forefront seemed to be this humanoid figure, with a hole in its chest of all things. Other angular figures, more animal-like in nature, were circled around the figure in what seemed to worship. To add to the religious imagery, the prominent humanoid figure seemed to have a holy light surrounding it. Near the figure's feet was a large key, though its purpose didn't seem to be that clear._

_Turning his eyes away from the mosaics, Naruto looked around towards the center of the chamber. What went through his mind was that this place was some kind of shrine. At the very center of the room lay a large stone pedestal, with something resting on it, though he couldn't tell what it was at this distance. All around the pedestal lay several monuments, making the entire shrine almost look like a Stonehenge-type monument. Whatever the case, this entire area seemed to have been left here by ancient Hollows._

_The fox Hollow walked up the few steps leading up to the pedestal, hoping to get a glimpse at what was the deal with all these things. As he approached the pedestal, he vaguely noted two more torches that seemed to flank the centerpiece, and he finally saw what was revered so much by this shrine._

_It was a book. Actually, it would more accurately be called a tome._

_It was slid into this little notch into the stone, which was surrounded by gem-encrusted rock. The gold striped cover didn't have any sort of title or indication of the contents inside, but Naruto felt strangely drawn to the book._

_He grabbed the book from off its pedestal, his paranoid mind thinking that there may be a trap waiting for him. However, the said trap never sprang, and when Naruto successfully removed the book, a much smaller notebook fell from inside the cover._

_He placed the larger book on his back as he picked up the smaller notebook with his front-left paw, noticing that the title was "Notas de Torobic." And, with both books in hand, the fox Hollow slowly made his way back into his throne room._

_When he got back, he shooed away any of his vassals or generals that were remaining in the room. He wanted to be alone, so he could read this. He knew he shouldn't be reading this, with war on the horizon, but still... he had the feeling that the answers to all his problems lied within this piece of text._

_With that in mind, Naruto opened the tome without hesitation. As he read through the entire book, his eyes became wider, and his pose become more slack. There came a knock to his door several times, but Naruto just ignored it in favor of the book._

_Many hours later, when Naruto had finally finished the book, his pose had gone completely slack, and he dropped the book and let it crash to the ground below. He laid down on his throne in a lopsided position, his breathing a little rapid._

_"O-Oh... Oh, fuck. I just read about something really fucking amazing, didn't I." he gasped out, thoroughly enraptured by the contents of that book. The sheer **things** that were written down in that tome were simply mind-blowing to him. He didn't think he could show this to anyone, not even Ulquiorra, until they were ready. Right now, the secrets of that book would remain with him and only him._

_Trying to recover, he turned to the other, much smaller notebook; the one that Torobic had wrote and slipped into the book. The thought had been bugging Naruto for quite some time. The first book clearly wasn't written by Torobic, but since he had slipped his own writings inside, he definitely knew about, and had most likely read it as well. Was that ox Vasto Lorde trying to guard it or something?_

_He opened the notebook, his thoughts lingering on what Torobic knew. As he read through the much shorter notebook, he didn't become slack with shock like with the tome. Rather, his mouth smiled with unrestrained glee. _

_"This notebook holds some **very **interesting information indeed..." he drawled, looking around his throne room for a moment._

_"In fact, Torobic's notes may just help me to defeat his brother..."_

* * *

And, that was how Naruto had planned out what to do. Torobic's information held many secrets to his brother's abilities, strengths, and weaknesses. The now deceased ox Hollow had mentioned some sort of falling out between the two in his notes, and he needed to be prepared in case his older brother one day came looking for revenge.

What was Torobic's preparation came as a gold mine for Naruto. The notes documented Dreendo's abilities in perfect detail, and also mentioned how Dreendo may like to use animal Hollow slaves, with special collars to keep them in line. To top it all off, it even explained how to disable the collars.

This information would definitely be useful in dealing with the future onslaught. He had the perfect plan to deal with them, and now he just needed to be lucky enough for it to work in his favor.

To tell the truth, they had been expecting the attack for several days now, and his trap was already prepared, just waiting to be sprung. All they needed now was the trigger, when one of the Hollows he placed on lookout reported back to him.

Naruto sighed. This kingdom business was coming along at least somewhat well. Well, his throne room could really be called more of an encampment than a palace, and he was really a king in name only at this point.

At least he had gotten his new subjects settled in though. This place was big enough to be a capital city of some kind, but right now the lesser Hollows were split into many different settlements throughout the cave complex. He had left it to Ulquiorra, who had skillfully divided up the Hollows based on their abilities, and how likely they were to fight each other. He had found the old settlements of Hollows who had lived here during Torobic's time, and the Hollows had taken up residence in the many different hive-like structures that were scattered throughout the labyrinth.

In addition, once Naruto relayed the plan to Ulquiorra, the bat Hollow also took the liberty of making preparations for the other Hollows. They were scattered all throughout the cave complex, so if Dreendo wanted to fight them on their home turf, then it would be impossible for them to avoid the encampments.

Naruto didn't know where he would be without Ulquiorra. The bat Hollow had basically taken care of all domestic issues, and the sorting of the population was just one of the things he had resolved.

Speaking of Ulquiorra, the wooden door to his chamber creaked open, and inside came the reliable bat Hollow. Naruto grinned lightly at his right-hand man, knowing deep inside that something was about to go down.

The bat Hollow gave a slight bow, something that was respectful but not too overt and fancy. When he was done, he walked dutifully into Naruto's chamber, and locked eyes with the fox Hollow himself.

"Naruto, one of the lookouts at the top of the plateau spotted Dreendo and his army off the coast. They will arrive here and begin their attack within an estimated twelve hours. Their army is large, larger than we expected, and it seems that they brought the slaves along in order to attack with them. However, I have sent word to all the Hollows in all the settlements, and told them to prepare to attack them..." he said, not wasting any time or breath on useless statements.

Naruto hopped to his feet, looking somewhat anxious and pleased.

"That's good. Are Grimmjow and Nnoitra keeping the other Hollows in line at the two largest settlements, and making sure they do their jobs?" he asked.

Ulquiorra faltered slightly at that question.

"Unfortunately, some of the Hollows have been unresponsive or rebellious to their jobs. So far, the two of them have had to put down a combined total of seventeen Hollows who have made it clear that they're not interested in you. However, I get the feeling that they were both just looking for an excuse to kill something. In more fortunate news, the smaller settlements that Grimmjow and Nnoitra are unassigned to have had no known skirmishes under the various leaders you appointed..." he finished.

Naruto looked slightly angry at the prospect of rebellion, but he quickly shrugged it off.

"Well, whatever. Seventeen is a fucking drop of water in an ocean, but the idea of rebellion isn't good for me. Anyway, the important thing right now is that we're prepared for Dreendo's attack."

The fox Adjuchas walked over to the big wooden door, creaking it open slightly with his paws. He then turned to Ulquiorra, his eyes filled with silent confidence.

"It's time we head to the front lines. I have a large role in this as well..."

* * *

"Quit yer lazing 'round and git to it!" roared a particularly tenacious guard, who called up to the slaves when the last one had finally scaled the plateau. Harribel glared down at the guard, even though he couldn't really see her.

"We'll be waiting here while you bestis go and destroy this kingdom. But, remember... leave the fox king and his bat lackey alive so I can deal with them myself. The rest of them you have full permission to kill," ordered Dreendo, his loud voice carrying up the plateau clearly.

These pathetic Hollows weren't even going to fight their own battles, Harribel thought to herself. It seemed a similar thought was going through everyone else's head as well. Such thoughts reminded her just how poor of a military commander Dreendo actually was. He had gained all his territory through the use of slaves, and fortunately for him, his opponents didn't seem to be that bright either. She couldn't remember the last time his army had actually done any fighting of their own.

She turned back to her task at hand, and immediately she already noticed a problem. This entire mission wasn't going to be very straightforward, as there were no less than ten entrances into the subterranean reaches of the plateau, and the shark Hollow could figure out immediately that the interior of this was going to be a labyrinth.

"What's the hold up?" came the voice of one of the guards, but Harribel and the other slaves simply ignored him. She had her eyes on the many different cave entrances, trying to figure out what to do. The other slaves seemed to have their eyes on her, waiting for her guidance.

"Okay..." she started, and everyone's attention was now fully on her. She commanded unchallenged authority in the entire group, as the strongest Hollow and the leader.

"We're going to split up into four groups here, and each group will travel down a difference entrance. Any Hollows that have a bio-luminescence will be at the forefront, as it will likely be very dark in there. There's also no doubt in my mind that the enemy will have traps set up for us as we descend. Everyone's objective is to flush out the enemies and exterminate them, while making sure not to fall for any of their traps." she ordered, and the Hollows around her grunted in confirmation.

After splitting into their groups, the other three descended first, leaving Harribel's group behind alone to enter after them. She felt somewhat uneasy about this entire ordeal.

Splitting into groups. She felt that was exactly what the enemy wanted...

* * *

Harribel didn't let her guard down inside the interior, as the bio-luminescent Hollow at the forefront lead the way through the deep cavern. She was surprised by how complex and treacherous the complex could be. There were multiple places for rock slides, and many, many bottomless pits that could be a real hazard for the group.

Right now, they were trudging along a narrow staircase that spiraled along a tall, narrow chamber. There was a deep pit below them, and from what they could see, there were wide platforms and areas that lead to other parts of the cavern all throughout the chamber. She guessed that this could be call the main "hub" of the dungeon.

They had already lost a slave to the bottomless, a clumsy pig-like Hollow who lost his footing and fell, his fearful squealing continuing even after he went splat when he reached the bottom.

Harribel's mind was taken off of the pig Hollow, when she thought she saw a shadowy figure moving about in the darkness. She halted, and so did the rest along with her.

"Wait... I saw a shadowy figure lurking on that platform a level above us..." she said, gesturing to said platform, which hung over their heads. The other Hollows tensed up slightly, waiting for their leader's order.

She saw it again, and this time it didn't go unnoticed by the rest of the group. They tensed up at the arrival, and one impatient Adjuchas slave worked up the nerve to fire a Cero at the shadowy figure.

The red beam of light missed the target completely, hitting the stone wall directly below the platform and causing several chunks of rock to fall from the damaged area.

"Idiot!" Harribel hissed at the attacker. "Don't be so reckless with your attacks! Do you want this place to cave-in on us?" she finished with a roar, and the Hollow who attacked had the decency to look sheepish.

"The shadowy figure is gone now..." she sighed, looking up at the platform to see nothing there. Just a sea of darkness in a place where their light source couldn't reach. Come to think of it, the shadowy figure could still be there watching them, and just hiding out of view of their light.

"We probably just drew attention to ourselves with that attack, so we've lost the element of surprise." she stated, glaring lightly at the offending Hollow who had blown their cover.

"We'll continue on to that platform where we saw the shadowy figure, and see if we can flush it out there. Just keep your guard up. They have the advantage in this darkness, and that shadowy figure might use it to get a sneak attack on one of us."

Just then, they heard a distant crashing of rocks, following by what seemed to be the collapse of something, as well as some cries of pain and distress in there as well.

Her eyes widened under her mask, and she speed to the front past the bio-luminescent Hollow.

"Hurry, everyone. We need to get to higher ground, and figure out the source of that noise..." she stated, as the rest of the slave Hollows increased their speed to keep up with her.

They managed to cover their distance in a few seconds flat with their speed, reaching the edge of the platform where they had seen the shadowy figure. Getting a better view though, they could see a tunnel near the end, which clearly lead to another area in the complex.

The slaves nodded to each other, but then the same shadowy figure darted out from his hiding place behind a large stone pillar situated on the platform, and ran with great speed through the tunnel opening.

This caught all of the slaves off guard, some of them fumbling around in the dark, lost and confused on what they were supposed to do. Just then, they heard another round of rockslides and screaming, leading Harribel to believe that another group was hit.

"Dammit, we've got to hurry!" she exclaimed. "Follow that Hollow..." she ordered to the rest of the group. The bio-luminescent Hollow took off into the tunnel, while Harribel and the rest of the group trailed behind.

The group of Hollows trudged through the narrow chamber in almost a straight line, searching desperately for the being that they were chasing. As they approached the end of tunnel and were about to emerge into a different chamber, the same noises could be heard again, signifying that the third and final group had fallen for their traps.

"_Shit... this isn't going so well." _Harribel thought to herself, as she emerged out of the tunnel and into another area of the chamber. All in all, it looked somewhat similar to the area they just came from, which meant multiple staircases and a pit in the center.

There came a shout from the bottom of the pit, and Harribel rushed over to the edge to get a better look. It was too dark to see anything down there, but she could hear many a cry of Hollows down there, and from their pained cries, it was Hollows on their side.

"_What in the world. So the collapsing noises were definitely the staircases, and the slave Hollows fell down there in the process. However, this place is too intact for anything like that, then that means..." _she trailed off in her thoughts for a moment, her mind trying to figure out just what happened.

"..._that there are many areas with pits like these ones, and all the pits are connected to the same bottom area. There are no walls or obstacles blocking anything at the bottom._" She ran over this theory in her mind, finding it suitably logical.

There came a what seemed to be a rolling noise coming from upwards, and Harribel craned her neck upwards to see what she thought would be her downfall.

On a high, wide ledge greatly above her, there was a settlement of enemy Hollows, the ones she was assigned to search out and destroy. However, it seemed that those Hollows weren't too keen on visitors, as they had prepared no less than twenty humongous boulders that were currently perched on the end of the ledge. Boulders that they were clearly intending on rolling down at them.

"_Oh cra-"_ she thought, but before she could finish, she saw that shadowy figure, now slightly more clear to them, climbing up the ledge to join with the rest of his comrades by the boulders.

"_Oh no. He was just a decoy. We played right into their hand! How could I be so stupid?" _she scolded herself, but she would have no time for that, as one of the shadowy Hollows on the far left rolled his boulder down the slope. It smashed into one of the staircases, killing two slave Hollows and reducing the stairs themselves to pieces.

A few Hollows fell into the pit, but most of the group kept their balance on the now ruined staircase. Or at least, they would until the other Hollows rolled down the nineteen remaining boulders upon them.

This time, the boulders obliterated the staircase almost completely, leaving nowhere to stand on. They also killed more than twenty slave Hollows, and every single alive one was forced to plummet into the pit without anything to stand on.

Some of the Adjuchas attempted to use Sonido to get to a safe area, but it was pointless. With their level of Sonido, there was no where to land on when falling at their speed.

Harribel hit the ground with a heavy thud, groaning lightly at the pain. The other Hollows seemed to be in a similar position. They had fallen for the trap, but there was something that perplexed Harribel. The Hollows should've known that a fall like that wouldn't have killed them, so what was the point of that?

She looked around; there was an exit nearby, but it was sealed off completely. That meant that the Hollows up there seemed to prepare for everything. She also noticed that Hollows from the other groups landed down here as well, and were beginning to mingle with each other to form one giant group yet again.

One of the Hollows bumped into the corpse of a Hollow who didn't survive the fall, and in a moment of weakness, devoured the carcass out of sheer hunger. A similar thing happened to all the other dead Hollows in the vicinity.

There were torches lining the walls down here, making it much more visible than it was up there. Still, it took the group quite some time for them to notice a few figures standing on a ledge more than fifty feet above them.

Harribel was the first to notice them, and her eyes widened when she saw just who it was she was looking at. An eight-foot tall fox Adjuchas, and one that exactly matched the description in Dreendo's report. This was their main target, the one they were supposed to bring back alive.

Behind him there seemed to a few other Hollows, a bat one, a panther one, and a mantis. Also, crumpled at his feet was an unconscious slave Hollow, one of them that he had apparently taken hostage.

The other Hollows who had fallen seemed to realize the same thing, as within the crowd there seemed to be quite a bit of muttering going on between them. She heard a few of them mention about how this was their target.

Yet again, a Hollow stupidly tried to attack this target with a Cero, though it was easily avoided by all four Hollows on the ledge. With their only real method of attacking them, it would be impossible to defeat them like this.

The fox Hollow grabbed the unconscious Hollow, holding him at arm's length. He stroked the slave medallion attached to the creature's neck lightly, drawing anger from the Hollow's below.

Harribel stood in silence as the other Hollows roared and jeered at the fox Hollow.

"_What is he doing_?" she thought to herself, seeing the fox king touch the slave medallion. She saw him smile gently, but she couldn't shake the feeling that there was just something so..._ off_ about that smile.

"I know..." he whispered, and yet the voice resonated completely into the pit below, and filled the ears of every Hollow present there. The slave Hollows grew silent at that remark, and within a few seconds there came some slight murmuring from the crowd. No more rage, just a strange sense of curiosity.

"I know.. about this medallion. I know... about your oppression. I know... that you are all slaves to Dreendo. Slaves, forced to work for him and fight his battles; you all yearn for the day that you will be set free from your torment." he started, his voice quiet and benevolent.

"_Could it be?" _Harribel thought to herself. If this Hollow knew about the torment she and all these other Hollows had suffered at the hands of Dreendo, was he implying that he could set them free. Was this her savior?

After these thoughts, there came a slight dampener to Harribel's high hopes, as she remembered what type of world she lived. Still, the Hollow's words sounded so gentle... so sincere, that she couldn't help but trust him in spite of herself. What she didn't realize that beyond that thickly veiled persona was nothing but an evil character who cared nothing for them. Out of all the Hollow in the room, Ulquiorra was the only one to tell that his speech pattern was purely false.

"Do you wish to be free? To be able to do whatever you please? Or do you simply want Dreendo to suffer for his crimes?" he started, and every Hollow was now enraptured by his chant.

"Then join me, I can help you. I can _free _you..." he said, his false charisma beginning to shine through. He then adopted a look of faux sorrow, one that Ulquiorra thought looked incredibly out of place.

"I know I have done some unforgivable things in order to tell you this. I ordered my men to drop boulders on you, which even killed a few of your comrades. But, you were under orders to capture me on sight, and that was the only way I could talk to you like this." he cried, he voice becoming louder again at the last part.

"As you can see, we are all fellow animal Hollows." His voice crept even louder. "Do you want to spend the rest of your lives being forced to work for those pathetic humanoid Hollows? Or do you want to live free with your brethren? You may not think that you have the power to defeat Dreendo and his army, but united we can! United, we can fight! And united, we can win! Can you hear the war drums beating? They're telling you to rise up against your oppressors, and free yourselves at last! Join me, as together we outnumber Dreendo's army, and with out combined strength, we can win!" he roared, the speech ringing true to many of the slaves.

There came cheers from the crowd, those who were inspired by Naruto's words, and raring to exact their revenge on Dreendo. However, not all were convinced by Naruto's speech, as several of them continued to hiss and boo at Naruto's words, while reminding their fellows that he had killed many a comrade. A few of them even attempted to fire more Ceros.

Naruto wasn't phased.

"If some of you still remain unconvinced of my truthful words, then perhaps this will convince you. I have discovered a secret recently, one that I learned from Dreendo's brother Torobic, and something I think you will find quite astonishing..." he said.

He once again turned his attention back to the unconscious Hollow that he was holding, placing his hand against the chain attached to its neck.

"Torobic's notebook says the following," he started, preparing to do something to the Hollow's medallion.

"Apply seventy-six newtons of force directly and precisely on the four joints of the medallion. This is the key to removing the medallion without harming the wearer. It can be performed by anyone who is proficient in reiatsu control. A single finger push in the right area should be sufficient enough to remove the device..." he said casually, pressing his finger against each of the four corners of the medallion.

The Hollows below watch with apt awe at Naruto's performance. Even the ones who were untrusting of Naruto's proposition... were silent. Then suddenly, there came a slight pop and a click, and a clang as the medallion that had caused them so much grief clattered to the flood, now useless.

The slaves were stunned. Flat-out floored by what just happened. Their medallion, the source of their problems in life, was gone just like that. At the hands of the one they were supposed to have captured.

After that, the other three Hollows flanking Naruto seemed to come to the forefront, as if they were going to assist Naruto in the removing of all the medallions.

"Now, simply swear allegiance to me, and I will remove each and every one of your medallions, allowing you to live free under my reign. We will also bring the attack to Dreendo, and destroy his army of humanoid Hollows!" he exclaimed, only to be met with a much louder chorus of cheers. The few who remained skeptical of Naruto's intentions were quickly turned, when they witnessed that most of the slaves were jumping at the opportunity to get their collars off.

Naruto was shining underneath the full approval of the slave Hollows, a bastion of morality underneath these slaves who have had all hope torn from them. No matter how false his proclamations were, he continued to shine through.

For a split second, a insane grin that showed his true nature surfaced, but it was gone as soon as it came, replaced with the confident, kind smile that the slave Hollows had taken a liking too. And, while underneath the spotlight, after what felt like was top of the world, Naruto whispered one thing that would go unheard by anyone in the entire chamber.

"Perfect..."

* * *

Chapter is done!

I always find it odd when situations like this happens. In my outline, I usually tend to think I know how many words I can get out of a certain Chapter. Sometimes though, I end up writing a lot more or less than I expected, to the point I'll have to add something that was going to go in a future Chapter in, or move a plot point I planned to use towards a later Chapter. This was a case of the latter.

Anyway, enough about me rambling, make sure you review this and tell me what you think, okay?

**Translations and Other Features**

Notas de Torobic: Torobic's notes

Goodbye,

_**Alban55**_


	24. Explosión

**Dragon's Wraith**: No, I doubt that Naruto could pull off all the deception and acting that Aizen is capable of. But, he's still talented enough to persuade a broken group of Hollows to fight for him.

Anyway, that's all for now, so enjoy Chapter 24 and don't forget to review!

* * *

Chapter 24: Explosión

When Harribel's medallion was removed from her neck, she had a huge weight off of her shoulders that she hadn't felt in years. She touched the area around her neck, almost as if the entire thing was just too good to be true.

The shark Hollow began to breathe slightly heavier at the revelation that she was finally free of her long burden. She laughed lightly, a rare event for the usually stoic Hollow, and it was surprising that her laughter had such a beautiful tone to it.

It was the fox king himself who had removed her burden for her, and for that she was incredibly grateful. She looked over, seeing the fox already moving on to the next slave, and using the delicate procedure needed to remove the medallions.

She looked to the rear to see hundreds, if not thousands of liberated slaves mingling with each other down at the bottom of the cave. If there was one thing that slavery was good for, it was conditioning them to not eat each other. She turned back to the fox and his three underlings who were also helping remove medallions, and noticed a few slaves jump into the crowd, finished with the procedure.

The shark Hollow took a deep breath, and began slowly walking up to her savior. If the fox noticed her, he sure didn't show it, as he was focused completely on removing the medallion off yet another slave, sighing and muttering to himself as he tried to use the right amount of force.

He finally noticed her after he had removed the medallion from the slave. He looked up at her from his position, and offered a soft smile, which unknown to her was completely fake.

"I'd just like to say that you, as well as your subjects have my sincere gratitude for freeing me and this multitude of slaves. I would just like to say thank you as leader of the former slaves..." she said confidently, also offering him a smile back.

"You're the leader of the slaves? I didn't realize that Dreendo would have such a thing as rank among slaves. But, that's all in the past you now, so I guess it doesn't matter." he said, his voice dripping with a sugary tone, one that his three generals would notice as being completely fake.

"Though, you and your fellows seemed to be quite excited about this development, and the chance to get your much deserved revenge on the tyrant. So, I take it you'll be joining us?" he asked politely.

Harribel nodded at that, though not without slight hesitation.

"Anything's better than being a slave, and we do owe you for saving all of us, so as the former leader of the slaves, I think I speak for everyone when I say that I swear allegiance to you, and only you." she said, dropping to one knee and bowing her head. All the eyes of her comrades were on her now, nearly all of them accepting or tolerant of this new development.

Cheering arose in the air as the slaves uniformly rose a limb into the air as if to salute to their new leader.

"Now, there's no need for that... uh," the fox Hollow trailed off, realizing that he didn't even know her name.

"Harribel. Tia Harribel." she said, finishing her new king's sentence for him.

"Right, right. Harribel." he remarked excitedly. "It's good to have you, as well as all these liberated slaves as part of the team now. And, since you're the supposed leader of all these Hollows, it just wouldn't feel right not to give you a certain position of power..." he said affably.

Harribel looked slightly surprised that he would offer something like that, and it was made clear underneath her mask. He hadn't even seen her fight yet.

"You don't have to do something like that... uh," she trailed off, mirroring Naruto's actions earlier. However, she looked significantly more embarrassed, considering she didn't even know the name of the Hollow she would be following.

"Naruto. Naruto Uzumaki. Don't call me "sama" or some bullshit like that. Just Naruto, so get used to saying that from now on. About your position of power though, I want a fourth General to complete the hierarchy, and you're most likely the best person for the job." he said, dropping all "personal" feelings and becoming strictly professional.

Harribel looked like she was about to protest to that, but she kept her mouth closed. She didn't particularly care about some position of power, in fact she had complete and utter apathy about the opportunity to become high-ranked in her new life. Though, despite his friendly demeanor, she didn't believe that Naruto would like it if she turned down such an offer. He seemed dead-set on her becoming his fourth general.

"I don't think I'm the type of Hollow to lead a great number of Hollows, Naruto. I only did it under Dreendo because I was being forced to..." she argued, her voice never changing tone to indicate emotion. Naruto, however, wasn't fazed.

"Nonsense. You have all the markings of a leader. Look at this, you have the respect and admiration of all the Hollows here, and yet you say you don't have the qualities of a leader? You're the perfect choice, and I'm afraid I won't take no for an answer." he said, the sugary tone now slightly more malevolent, though Harribel still didn't pick up on it.

"..."

Naruto sighed. "Okay, fine. We'll discuss this after we get rid of the current threat. I at least expect you to lead these former slaves one last time to destroy Dreendo. Myself, Ulquiorra, Grimmjow, and Nnoitra will join you with our own forces. Do I make myself clear?" he ordered, an air of finality in his voice.

"..."

Harribel did nothing but stare, but she at least seemed to accept those terms. The eyes of all her comrades were on her intently, like they were waiting for something like this to happen. She didn't want to let them down.

"Alright," she said finally and simply. Naruto smiled at her.

"Good, now's your day of reckoning, Harribel. With our combined forces, whatever Dreendo can throw at us won't really affect anything." He turned to his other three generals.

"Round up all the leader Hollows assigned to the colonies, and order them to lead the Hollows under their jurisdiction to the top of the plateau. We're going to take this war to Dreendo, and make his army actually fight!"

Nnoitra and Grimmjow grinned at the opportunity to spill some blood, before turning to one another and glaring. Ulquiorra simply nodded, not caring about the prospect of fighting one bit.

"Harribel, considering you have defected from Dreendo's forces, you should be able to tell us the size of his army and his current location. I need you to tell us all you can so we can properly prepare the attack," Naruto said after turning to Harribel, who nodded her head slightly.

"Dreendo's current location if directly outside, underneath this plateau. When he attacks anything, he will always wait a not-so safe distance away from the action while the slaves do all the work. He's very overconfident like that. It's a major flaw I know we can exploit, because he did not bring the full extent of his army to combat you. Even now, the reserve of slaves he owns is far greater than the amount of actual troops he has, though they are much more efficient and well-trained than slaves are..." she explained.

"He's below us. That's good. Harribel, can you give me a rough estimate of the number of Hollows that can use ranged attacks that are in this group?" he asked seriously.

The other Hollows seemed to be listening as well, as when Harribel gave a sharp whistle, those who were mainly ranged fighters separated to one side of the cavern.

Naruto grinned. There were a sufficient amount of them.

"Okay, the group of ranged fighters is going to accompany Harribel towards the top of the plateau. There, you will remain out of sight to support the close and medium-range fighters as they attack Dreendo. However..." he turned to everyone this time.

"It's likely that someone will pick up that something's wrong with the reiatsu, so you'll have to be quick. The rest of you will go down to the bottom where Dreendo and his army are located. Try to get the jump on them and hold your ground. We will arrive within a few minutes. When Dreendo is finally killed, it is then that we will truly claim victory..." he proclaimed, and the rest of the Hollows cheered.

Naruto held up his front paws, silencing the group after a few seconds.

"Shall we go then, Ulquiorra, Nnoitra, Grimmjow? I leave this group to you Harribel. I have great trust that you'll be able to lead them to victory..." he smiled, the sappy tone once again convincing her.

With that, the four male Hollows left through an opening on the ledge they were occupying. A few minutes, they had unsealed the doorway leading out of the deep pit, allowing Harribel and her group to exit and take the fight to Dreendo.

* * *

"Naruto, was that wise? Lying to her like that; if she's going to become the fourth general, how do you think she'll react when you let your true nature come forth?" asked Ulquiorra, slightly wary of the shark Adjuchas.

Naruto grinned obnoxiously as the four Hollows walked down the narrow corridor. He really was getting somewhat get at this manipulation business, but he supposed it had something to do with his previous career as a shinobi. He sighed wistfully at Ulquiorra's statement, being in high spirits ever since he had recruited so many Hollows.

"Necessity, Ulquiorra. Necessity..." he replied, looking back to stare at the three confused Hollows.

"I just saved her from a terrible life, you see. She wouldn't dare try anything even if my true nature is revealed; she's too indebted to me for that to happen. Did you see the look on her face when I told her she could be completely free of Dreendo? I plan to build on that, making her completely reliant on me and only me, if she isn't like that already..." he explained.

"In a way, I guess you could say that she hasn't escaped her old life..." he cackled, to which the other three Hollows got what he was saying. Nnoitra and Grimmjow laughed along with him.

* * *

"What the hell are they doing?" Dreendo asked himself, sensing the lack of fighting noises from inside the plateau. The place was desolate, no noises, no reiatsu spikes or anything else they could be considered signs of a battle. His guards around him didn't even stir.

"That's it, when they come back, they're going to be in for one hell of a punishment..." he ranted, the guards finally looking at him stoically, yet not without a little hint of exasperation.

"Dreendo-sama, if we just give them time, I'm sure they will..."

"Fuck that, they need to-" he began childishly, but he cut himself off, noticing some shadowy figures attempting to hide on the precipice above. They looked... somewhat familiar.

"Oh, there they-" again the king was cut off as soon as he noticed that it was his slaves. This time, some of the slaves were huddling behind outcroppings, and from the top of them they launched a multitude of ranged attacks. From spines, to pellets, to corrosive liquids, to Ceros, they rained down upon the huddled army.

Dreendo's eyes widened underneath his hood, as an unprepared soldier to the right of him was hit by a spine to the chest. The thick spine penetrated to the left of its hole, spilling red blood from the deep wound. The soldier collapsed to the ground, heavily wounded.

All in all, about twelve or thirteen members of his army had been hit by the first wave of projectiles, and even he had to block an oncoming one with his thick Hollow skin.

Now the slaves who had remained out in the open were storming down the plateau, while the projectile launching Hollows remained and began to launch another wave of attacks.

"Those idiots..." he muttered to himself. "The slaves are rebelling! Stand your ground and fight back!" he roared, and his army personally readied themselves for a fight, something they hadn't done in quite a long time. They were used to just being overseers, watching over and abusing the slaves and making sure they were kept in line.

Dreendo signed, he would need to make an example out of a few of the slaves, which would make them deplete in numbers. He held his both of his arms out, letting a few small pricks of red reiatsu to appear on the palms of his hands.

"_Say good night..._" as he activated the reiryoku that he had kept stored within ten of the medallions that were around the slave's necks. The red reiatsu in his hands went from a few pricks to a full blown torrential flame, before disappearing completely.

He blinked... and nothing happened. The slaves continued to rush his army, who by this point had become a disorganized mess that clearly wasn't going to able to deal with the situation at hand.

He tried again. Nothing... He tried _again_. _Nothing... _

The guard to his left was by a large, round pellet to the head, which completely caved in his mask and destroyed his brain. Some of the blood flecked onto Dreendo, but he was too enraptured to pay attention to what was going on around him.

"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?" he shrieked at the top of his lungs, much to the amazement of the Hollows around him. He frantically looked around for an answer to this conundrum, until his eyes locked on Harribel, who was leading the pack of Hollows down towards them. He focused in on her neck, and to his surprise, there was nothing around it! In a panic, he turned to look at a few of his other slaves, and noticed that there wasn't anything around their necks either!

"_Oh, crap."_

The slaves had finally descending upon them in a blaze of glory, combating the soldiers in the army with ferocity that no one would expect in bodies so withered.

The slave Hollows were using their own methods of attack against their foes. Most of them were attacking with slash attacks, or biting them and feasting on the corpse afterwards. That is not to say that the soldiers were completely outmatched though. In fact, the battle seemed to be somewhat even. His army had taken to using Ceros on their foes, an attack which sometimes worked spectacularly.

Harribel herself was cutting through soldiers like a weed-whacker, her oversized shark fin sword doing a fantastic job at it too. Her attacks had feeling too; they held all her hatred, her anger, and her sorrow. She was quite the sight to behold in battle. And yet, she was carving a path of dead soldiers straight in his direction.

"_So... she's heading for me, eh? Well, I'll show her a thing or two about how to fight..._" he thought. He gestured to his soldiers around him to give him a wide berth, and they didn't need to be told twice after witnessing their master fight, not to mention the rampaging shark Adjuchas that seemed to be coming straight at them.

Harribel didn't waste any time with small talk. The normally stoic Hollow, in a rare display of excessive violence, leaped an impressive distance into the air, and raised her natural weapon over her head.

"Die, Dreendo!" she roared, slashing down with all the force she could muster. She didn't care about how the attack left her open; she didn't care about how much stronger than her this Hollow was. All she wanted was to watch him die.

Unfortunately for her, this was not what she was going to see at the moment, as Dreendo deftly dodged the attack skillfully. He glared at her with sunken eyes underneath his hood, before he took a red arm and ripped off his hooded cloak.

He was blood-red from head to toe, the only difference in color being his always-white porcelain mask. He was about the same height as an average human male, though his build was far stockier than one of them.

The features across his body seemed roughly equivalent to a human's as well. He possessed arms and legs like them, as well as a torso like them. But, he also seemed to have sharp fingers and toes, things that could easily be used as claws.

His mask was vaguely humanoid, except it was a little more angular than a human's face. He also had three hollow tubes, one protruding out of his forehead over to the left of his mask, and two that came off of his cheeks to curve upward.

Harribel wasn't phased by this, and she thrust her weapon out again. Dreendo sidestepped it easily, and Sonido'd right in front of her. After getting underneath her guard, he punched her rapidly a good number of times, before thrusting out his hand in a jab, which was augmented by his sharp fingers.

Harribel was thrown back by the unseemingly powerful attack. He was a Vasto Lorde, so she knew that she should've expected him to have such power. His blows were strong, and not lacking in finesse either. And his Sonido was smoother than anything she had ever seen before. Yet, she was convinced that this was only the start of his abilities.

"Harribel, what is the meaning of this?" he spoke, his voice tinged with deadly seriousness. He looked at her now bare neck again, which she noticed and adopted a somewhat smug, mocking expression on her face.

"What happened to your medallion? Who removed it?" he hissed, tranquil fury overriding any rage. For the first time, he released his full reiatsu, a crushing force that instantly wiped the smug smile off Harribel's face, and replaced it with a look of pure fear.

She shouldn't have rushed in like that. She shouldn't have angered a Vasto Lorde. And, she was going to pay dearly for it... All she could do is wait for the backup that Naruto had promised her.

"Well, guess what, Harribel. This little rebellion of yours is going to cost you your life. Don't think I'm just going to sit here and let you do all of this. I'll use you as an example to all the pathetic little bestis that think its a good idea to rebel. I'm sure they won't take kindly to their precious little leader dying such a slow and painful death..." he said melodramatically.

Harribel readied her fin-sword again, though with her look of fear and slight sweating underneath the pressure, the young shark Hollow hardly looked intimidating, especially to a far older, more experienced Hollow.

"_Well, here is goes. I don't think I've really mastered this move yet, though..."_

She charged up her reiatsu in preparation to fight. It was a smooth yellow color, but as she finished her preparation, water began to form around the surrounding area.

Dreendo watched her, slightly intrigued but not so that he would pay attention to this in any great detail. His former leader slave was now pointing her weapon at him, and water began leaking from the three slits of the blade until it covered it completely.

"La Gota," she muttered, firing the concentrated mass of water at her opponent. It flew at him as a great speed, though not anything that could outrun him.

He disappeared into a flash at once, before reappearing what next to Harribel's side. The action caught the Hollow off-guard when it really shouldn't have, and she was thrust backwards as Dreendo nonchalantly backhanded her.

He stared at the blood that now coated his knuckles, before glancing at the downed Harribel and snorting in pure disdain.

"Oh, please Harribel. Do have any idea how predictable that was to avoid. Guess what, firing away at point-blank range doesn't work unless you've got something to hold your opponent in place. Any experienced fighter knows that." he lectured.

Harribel struggled to her feet. The attack had knocked the wind out of her, but it wasn't too threatening. Dreendo still looked bored.

"What did you really hope to accomplish by fighting me? You think that you'll defeat me if you keep this up?" he said, before he gave a loud, obnoxious guffaw not unlike a certain fox Hollow.

"Give me a break! You're just a lowly Adjuchas, and a _besti_ at that. I don't even need to use my special abilities to be able to defeat you. You would lose even to a humanoid Adjuchas, considering how inferior you bestis are. Your little surprise attack is the only reason you've managed to harm my army. In time, we're are going to push you all back, my little slave..." he said perversely.

Harribel grimaced. It was true. They were beginning to get pushed back. The soldiers had seemed to gather their morale, after going without a fight for so long, and the weaker, abused slave Hollows were started to get killed more often. She stared as a hog-like Hollow was pierced through the heart by a wiry limb of a soldier. This only added to the amount of casualties that were beginning to pile up.

Where the hell was Naruto?

"You see, even without the medallions you never stood a chance of being able to escape. I would give you a chance to stop now and return to me, but I'm not that nice. You've crossed the line Harribel, and you have to be punished for it..." he said, walking up to the Adjuchas.

Harribel tensed up at that, before slashing at him again with her weapon. Several times she gallivanted around, firing water attacks and slashing with her fin-sword. Yet, they didn't so much as scratch the Vasto Lorde, as he either dodged or tanked the attacks.

She did a back flip after avoiding a jab from Dreendo, but that turned out to be her fatal mistake. As she flipped, Dreendo took the opportunity to seize her neck, before effortlessly lifting the Hollow into the air.

He squeezed tightly, not saying a single word, yet keeping his soul-piercing gaze on Harribel. Those were eyes that promised nothing but pain and death.

To Harribel, it was pure agony. Her airways were completely constricted, though Dreendo seemed intent on snapping her neck rather than having her suffocate to death. She grunted and moaned as she struggled in mid-air, but Dreendo's grip didn't falter in the slightest.

Just... end it. Don't draw out her suffering.

_Clank!_

Harribel was roughly released from the Hollow king's grip, and dropped to the floor where she began gasping for breath. Dreendo himself wasn't focused on her anymore. Rather, he was focused on the small little projectile that was currently wedged within his arm.

To be able to penetrate _his _defenses, this object must have had incredible reiatsu behind it, no matter how slight the wound was. He yanked it out of his skin roughly, scruntinizing the jade green stone covered in blood.

Another dart hit the ground near his feet, causing a massive crater almost twenty feet in diameter, that the humanoid king sank into. This time, he was able to see the exact spot where they were coming from.

"Good shot, Grimmjow..." grinned Naruto, at the panther who had launched his claw darts over at the king, saving their fourth general from imminent death. The panther growled in response, his blue eyes still intently focused on his prey.

"Him..." hissed Dreendo, as he saw the damnable fox Hollow who killed his brother for the first time. He knew it was him, with the way he seemed to be leading around the other Hollows.

Speaking of other Hollows, the plateau was being swarmed with reinforcements, Hollows that appeared to be different than the slaves that they were currently engaging. They must've been a part of the fox's kingdom, and they were here to back up the slaves. Things might have gotten a whole lot worse for him.

He looked over to the left slightly, and noticed that there was a small panther Hollow to the fox's side, who seemed to be the one who was launching those darts at him. In addition to the fox, bat, and panther, there seemed to be a insectoid figure, though Dreendo couldn't see much of it at this distance.

He then had a sudden realization.

"_Wait..."_

"Harribel, don't tell me it was those fools who removed your medallion..." he said to the downed Hollow, who was still catching her breath from when Dreendo almost killed her.

He took Harribel's lack of response, and turning away from him as a "yes".

"Ha!" he chortled roughly. "Are they so pathetic that they need to list the help of _slaves_ to add to their forces. But, they seem to be all bestis, so I guess it I should expect this kind of behavior..." he mused.

"But still... I'm perplexed on how he managed to remove all those medallions. I designed them myself to hold Hollows in place, and the only person who I ever told about removing them was..." he trailed off, as his voice cracked near the end, and his sunken eyes popped out and his stance became more rigid.

"Oh, that son of a bitch!" he roared, his face a somewhat amusing display of annoyance. "He must have taken notes about my weaknesses in that damn book of his. Then that fox Hollow also knows about the _secrets _contained with that tome. The tome that was handed to both of us by _him_..." he said, his voice going far lower.

"The situation just got far more serious. It looks like I'll have to handle this myself."

His eyes panned. The four Hollows up there seemed to be making their move, as the last of their own Hollows flooded out of the cave complex. The panther and insect Hollows seemed to be rushing down the plateau. They were clearly eager to spill some blood. The fox king himself seemed to want to join the battle, and he even locked eyes with Dreendo from what he could tell. The bat Hollows remained up there, supervising as all the other Hollows began to flood down the precipice.

The bat Hollow then took to the air along with a few other Hollows that could fly, and launched a Cero down on the battlefield that obliterated five or so of his weaker Hollows.

The panther and insect had broken into the main area of the battle, and they were tearing it up with a ruthless efficiency. With the panther's speed and the mantis' strength, the two were seemingly unstoppable.

The mantis was covering the left, and the panther was covering the right, but the fox was cutting straight through the middle, heading straight towards him in a similar manner as Harribel did earlier.

The overconfident king prepared to face him with hand-to-hand combat, but before he could react, the fox zipped away with a speed Dreendo didn't think was possible from an Adjuchas.

Eyes panning, the king was too late to notice the young Hollow flash into existence directly above him, and score a direct hit with his paw right to the side of his mask.

The impact jarred Dreendo somewhat, though his tough defense held through for him. Still, this was no normal Adjuchas. It must have eaten his brother after it killed him. Even though it wasn't enough to make him evolve, it would still grant him an _enormous_ power boost.

Yet, Vasto Lorde he was not. The victor of this battle was still clear in Dreendo's mind.

"Get yourself to safety, Harribel..." Naruto said, flashing a wide (and clearly fake) smile at his newest general. "I'll handle this from here on out..." he said, turning his back to her and staring intently at Dreendo.

The shark Hollow's eyes almost watered underneath her mask. She had been saved yet again by her new king, though years of seclusion had left her weak and useless in a fight. She nodded gratefully to him, before she got up to her feet and headed for another section of the battle, away from her greatest adversary.

As he turned back to the fight, he noticed that Dreendo had recovered and had focused his full attention on him, whereas before he had never taken his eyes off Harribel even as he was rushed by Naruto.

"Not so fast, boy!" he screamed, as the shock of the first attack wore off, and Dreendo delivered a punch of his own to a Naruto who was rushing in from behind. It was a heavy blow, and though Naruto dodged quick enough to avoid any serious damage, it had injured him quite a bit.

Still, despite being downed, he got back to his feet and tried again, using the same rush forward strategy he had abused during the times when he was still alive.

"What are you, stupid!" Dreendo roared, reeling up for another attack. "I can predict this so easily!"

He grabbed Naruto around the fox's neck, similar to what he did to Harribel. But, Naruto was prepared. He had charged up a Cero during his rush, and with his face directly in front of Dreendo, he fired at point-blank range.

The attack singed Dreendo, and obliterated some fighting Hollows behind the two kings, but Naruto wasn't done yet. Using his prehensile tails, he jabbed one straight into Dreendo's chest.

The tail didn't penetrate Dreendo's skin, but that wasn't what Naruto was worried about. As he recovered, Dreendo started laughing at Naruto's pathetic excuse for an attack, but halted when he saw that Naruto was focused on something.

"Impacto de Cola..." he whispered, before he began a disturbed giggle, excited at being able to use his newest attack in an actual battle.

Out of the Hollow portion of the tail that was "attacking" Dreendo, a thin beam of reiatsu lanced out and through Dreendo's body. The beam of was thin, much thinner than a Cero, but it was highly concentrated, perfect for a high defense like Dreendo's. He roared in pain as he felt the surge of reiatsu burn a hole straight through his left hip. Naruto began laughing madly, and the laughter became mixed with gurgling as he then took a heavy punch from a rage-induced Dreendo.

He fell and slid over thirty feet through the dirt, coming to rest at the feet of a few Hollows who were fighting. One of Dreendo's soldiers lit up when he thought he saw an easy killed, but he was gutted before he could even think about attacking. An already recovered Naruto wheezed in laughter as the soldier's organs spilled from his body, and he had the perfect idea of what to do with them.

He picked up the soldier's stomach, before taking a bloody bite out of it and chucking them at Dreendo. The other king avoided the entrails easily, becoming infuriated at this besti's disregard for the dead soldier.

He picked up the kidneys, casting a shit-eating grin at Dreendo before devouring them completely. Blood drooled obscenely from his mouth, before Dreendo glared at him.

"_I don't think hand-to-hand combat is going to work anymore on this Hollow. He's too sneaky and cunning for me to get anything more than a few shallow hits on him. I guess that means I'll have to use my special abilities. But, on such a lowly besti. I must be getting really rusty in my skills..." _he thought to himself.

Dreendo then took a deep breath and calmed down slightly, closing his eyes as his rage subsided completely. Naruto was perplexed by the odd behavior, but he continued to tear a hole in the body that was now just a husk.

He snapped his eyes open, glowing with his signature blood-red reiatsu that matched his skin tone. The tube on his mask grew slightly larger, and they glowed with a reiatsu unlike anything Naruto had ever seen before. It had a red outline around it, but as it entered the interior, it became orange and eventually yellow, giving off the appearance like it was something melting.

Dreendo grinned, but there was something so _off_ about that grin that it might as well have been one of Naruto's. The tubes around his head began to hiss, until three pellets, about the size of peas were ejected from the tubes. They glowed with the same reiatsu that surrounded the tubes.

"Get ready, 'cuz you're dead..." he muttered, before he threw the pellets straight at Naruto. The fox Hollow in question, sensing the pellets were something dangerous despite their appearance, threw the husk of the body he had straight at the pellets, colliding the flesh with the reiatsu.

_**BOOM!**_

As the pellets hit the body, three large explosions about twenty feet in diameter erupted from the pellets, obliterating the body and sending both Naruto and an unprepared Dreendo flying back from the force.

All the Hollow's attention was drawn to the blasts, their eyes enraptured on the power so much that they temporarily stopped fighting. Until one of the soldiers shouted...

"Run away! Dreendo-sama is beginning to use his true powers!" he roared, before turning tail to fight somewhere else. The rest of the soldiers turned to run as well, but the former slave Hollows and Naruto's army weren't allowed to let that happen. They used their advantage to slash and attack the fleeing soldiers, letting the alive ones know that they weren't going to escape so easily.

"You fools! We have to get out of here! With Dreendo-sama using his power, none of us are safe! You'll be caught up in his blasts too!" shouted the Hollow who had warned everyone previously, but his pleas went on deaf ears.

"Save your breath, pal. We're here to make sure we drive you off Naruto-sama's land. We're not about to be afraid of what your leader can supposedly do..." said a Hollow in Naruto's army, to which the others roared in agreement.

Dreendo pulled himself to his feet, wiping his mask free of dirt, and didn't waste anymore time. He charged up his fists until they were actually hissing with the strange reiatsu he possessed, before he darted into the battle even faster than he had been previously.

Naruto shook his head as he got to his feet. That was unexpected. What was the strange reiatsu that Dreendo seemed to possess? Explosive reiatsu? The fox could see why such an ability could be considered deadly.

"What the!" he spluttered as Dreendo appeared in front of Naruto, his fists charged with explosive reiatsu that was just begging to be released.

"_Holy shit, no!_" he screamed in his mind, as he dodged out of pure instinct as the fist came down on him. At the last second, he hopped over Dreendo's head right after the punch was released, falling clumsily onto the dirt below.

Time seemed to stop for a second, as the desert was dead quiet for just a split-second as Dreendo stood there with his fist cocked. But then, all hell broke loose as an enormous explosion was released from Dreendo's punch, and dozens if not hundreds of Hollows on all side were engulfed within it.

The Hollows in the vicinity stopped fighting, and those who used a weapon dropped theirs, as they stared wide-eyed at the pure destruction that Dreendo had caused. Then, they roared, and hundreds of Hollows fled the area, going in whichever direction they thought was safest to escape too. Some even trampled over their fellows as they moved.

Dreendo wasn't phased by any of this. He turned away from the chaos and smouldering bodies, to see that Naruto had escaped by just a hair on a reflex. Dreendo looked down upon the fallen Hollow, who was breathing heavily while glaring at the Vasto Lorde.

"Get up. You're not fucking done, fox. You're gonna fight and die here, and I will claim Torobic's possession, that great tome he had, for myself..." he said, addressed the air with pure disdain.

"Wait... how do you know about that book?" Naruto asked.

* * *

On the skies above the battlefield, Ulquiorra surveyed the fight and destruction that Dreendo had brought. Grimmjow and Nnoitra were far away from Naruto, away from the blast, but their attention now seemed to be on the main fight as well.

"That's one deadly ability you're up against, Naruto. How do you think you're going to handle this one..." he said calmly, never feeling any worry at all for his new king.

Yet, somehow, he felt the need to go over there and help with the fight, and if anything Grimmjow and Nnoitra seemed to be thinking the same thing, as they were slowly plowing their the line of Hollows to reach the fox.

Ulquiorra sighed, it looked like he would have to do something too. And, with those words in mind, the bat Hollow sped over to where the battle was taking place, intent on turning the battle in their favor.

* * *

Done!

After a series of average-length and short Chapters, I finally manage to get a long one out, so good for me! Please review it, because I'm particularly proud of this Chapter. (At least as proud as I can be. I'm never truly satisfied with my writing ability).

**Translations and Other Features**

La Gota: The Drop

Impacto de Cola: Tail Impact

That's all for now, so see you next time!

**_Alban55_**


	25. El Asesor

**Impstar**: Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think Ulquiorra was ever confirmed to be a Vasto Lorde, and Harribel's status as a Vasto Lorde was simply filler. But, that's besides the point, since I believe both of them to be Vasto Lorde-class Arrancar. And, I don't necessarily need to break canon. Remember that this takes place quite a long time before canon, so they have plenty of time to evolve.

**rockhard034: **No, this is an entirely different Hollow. However, Dreendo is somewhat related to Valicav.

Here's Chapter 25, everyone. Originally, this was going to be the last chapter of the Reino Humanoide arc, but it ended it up dragging on an extra Chapter, so this arc will likely end after Chapter 26. The story will then start going in a completely different direction.

* * *

Chapter 25: El Asesor

"Know about it?" Dreendo asked, raising an eyebrow to Naruto's question. "Torobic was my younger brother, and he had possession of that book. He even added his own notes to it, about how he could counter _my_ attacks, among other things. How could I possibly _not_ know about it, eh?"

Naruto glared at the king in response to that, as he rose to his feet and averted his gaze before dropping into his usual stance. The fight wasn't going to go in his favor if Dreendo kept using those abilities of his.

"What the fuck, man? I fight my way over here just to notice you getting yer ass kicked hard by this fucker. What makes you think I'm gonna follow such a useless king after this display?" came a rude, taunting voice.

Naruto turned and glared even more murderously at the taunting voice, only to find Nnoitra fighting his way through the end of the thicket of battling Hollows. He didn't seem to care that he harmed former slaves or Hollows in his army. Not that Naruto himself cared regardless.

But, the fox Hollow really wasn't in the mood to put up with this shit, so a quick release of his superior reiatsu made the mantis Hollow shut his mouth in a second.

The three Hollows in the vicinity stood in awkward silence, until it was broken by a fourth presence making itself known to the group. Grimmjow, like Nnoitra, had fought his way through the crowd of Hollows to make it here, though he was being uncharacteristically silent.

"Well, well, well. Isn't this funny? The king, who seemed to boast so big before... is now being backed up by two other Hollows in a 3-on-1 fight! How ironic! But... I guess it just can't be helped. After all, I _am _a Vasto Lorde, and you all are a bunch of lowly Adjuchas. It makes sense that-" he was cut off by a blue Cero that he avoided somewhat clumsily.

"If a Cero to the head is what it takes to make you shut up, I'm going to hate killin' your ass..." said the grumpy panther Hollow, who was clearly the one who fired off the attack.

Dreendo was about to say something insulting back towards the Hollow, but they were all interrupted by sound of flapping wings. They looked overhead, and noticed Ulquiorra also flying in from over the waves of Hollows, to land gracefully at a spot in between Naruto and Grimmjow.

The bat Hollow didn't say a word, but he looked at Nnoitra with a condescending glare, like he didn't approve of Nnoitra's little display of insults to Naruto. Nnoitra sneered and almost pouted, knowing that Ulquiorra was very much more powerful that he was.

"Oh, now come on, guys. This just isn't fair to me. Now you've got that damnable bat Hollow joining the battle. Isn't there anyway you can spare me someone to fight for me..." Dreendo said childishly. He was only met with glares.

"Hmm, guess not. Looks like I'll just have to make do with what I have. Even against four high-level Adjuchas, my abilities should be more than enough to finish the job..." he whispered to himself.

With those words in mind, Dreendo sped off, leaving his four opponents on guard. The king appeared right next to Nnoitra first, considering him the weakest target, due to the fact that he was slow and his incredible defense could be breached by him.

"What are you doing, you ass?" roared Grimmjow, as he noticed Nnoitra was going to fail to stop Dreendo's attack. Ulquiorra, sensing the mantis Hollow's failure, using a surprising boost of speed to propel Nnoitra out of the way of Dreendo's attack. Nnoitra want skidding through the dirt, grunting and cursing as he ultimately was out of harm's way.

Dreendo followed through with his explosive punch anyway, managing to nick Ulquiorra on his right wing. Despite just barely tapping it, the explosion was enough to almost completely obliterate the wing, leaving only a foot of torn leathery material growing out of Ulquiorra's backside.

Nnoitra sat there rigidly, feeling somewhat numbed from the fact that he was saved by the bat Hollow. He looked up to see the bat's wing already repairing itself via high-speed regeneration.

The lack of feeling that Nnoitra quickly turned to anger and seething hate, as the bat Hollow turned to the mantis and gave him a look of pure disdain and contempt.

"If you're just going to get in the way like that, then why don't you go somewhere else where you can actually make yourself useful to someone..." the bat Hollow said acidly, much to the ire of Nnoitra.

It was like Nnoitra's inferiority complex took a major blow right where it hurt, and one could actually hear Nnoitra hissing out in hate that was directed at Ulquiorra.

"You bastard..." he hissed. It was barely audible, but the weight it seemed to carry was far greater than anything yelling ever could. While Nnoitra openly hated Grimmjow with a burning passion, he couldn't say the same towards this bat Hollow. Until now, that is. He just seemed a little emo, a little faggy for Nnoitra, but he always stayed out of his way. And, now that there was a damned _woman_ of all things getting a position of power _equal_ to him, he hated all three of his comrades. What the hell was Naruto thinking, appointing these guys that rank?

Ulquiorra wasn't fazed at all by the hate directed at him, instead just opting to attack Dreendo. Nnoitra then got to his feet, seeing how despite being attacked by Grimmjow, Ulquiorra, and Naruto, he wasn't being phased in the slightest. In fact, he was fighting fluidly, dodging every single strike with perfect ease. He also seemed to be patiently waiting for the right moment to attack.

The time when Dreendo had had enough was when Naruto attempted to slit his throat after Grimmjow had given him a suitable opening. Dreendo, like any Vasto Lorde, wasn't about to fall for such a simple trick. He purposely slid back to avoid the attack, and then let three pellets fall from the tubes on his head before using Sonido to disappear.

"Get away from it!" Naruto roared, as time seemed to freeze as the glowing red pellets fell to the ground. Without any hesitation, Naruto used his weight to buck Ulquiorra and Grimmjow out of the way, before taking cover himself.

The pellets exploded in a fairly small explosion that Naruto had expected, one that wouldn't have been able to do more than seriously injure them should they be caught in it. The purpose of the attack became clear to Naruto after that. Dreendo hadn't used that attack to kill. Rather, he simply used it as a distraction and as a chance to regroup and go on the offensive. The Vasto Lorde was simply toying with them.

"You guys, if we're just going to get in each other's way, you shouldn't be here. Our advantage in numbers is useless if we don't know how to properly work as a team, which we don't. Go back to your solo battles, and don't regard me in the slightest. Just destroy the enemy!" he shouted at the three others, before Dreendo could attack.

Then, Naruto heard a whooshing noise that he noticed was heading towards Nnoitra...

"_Oh, shit..._" he thought in his mind. It seemed that Dreendo was determined to wipe out the least dangerous to him first, proven by how he seemed to always attack Nnoitra when he could go for any one of them.

He had to do something if he wanted to save his second general. Without even thinking, Naruto himself sped over to Nnoitra's position, who didn't seem to notice that we was under attack. Roughly, Naruto shot one of his hind legs out, and kicked Nnoitra with all the force he could muster. The mantis Hollow went flying back into the battlefield a hundred feet away, but Dreendo was still coming.

The swipe meant for Nnoitra would've taken off his head and made it explode, but Naruto was apparently very good at reacting reflexively. He fell to one of his front paw's dodging underneath the first blow, before he used his momentum to propel himself away from the explosive kick that Dreendo tried to combo him with.

Unfortunately for him, the explosion was large enough to catch him while he was dodging, and the reiatsu seared one of his legs until he was roaring in pain. He fell to the dirt with a thud, looking at his now useless back left leg.

The fox Hollow attempted to stand, but while he got three of his legs up, the injured one was just too painful for it to move. He couldn't even force himself through the pain to stand. His leg was shot for the time being.

Ulquiorra and Grimmjow, seeing that Nnoitra had flown somewhere else and Naruto was incapcitated, realized that their odds of winning took a dramatic drop.

And, that was basically true for them. Dreendo had clearly had enough of fooling around with them now that his main target was incapacitated, so he decided to stop holding back so much. Using the power of levitation sought out by Hollows, he appeared next to Ulquiorra at a speed faster than he had ever shown, and slammed the bat Hollow to the ground with a crashing explosive pound.

The explosion lit up the night sky in a brilliant display of red and orange, and made anyone who hasn't fled a safe distance already do so. Needless to say, the impact and explosion almost killed Ulquiorra. In fact, it would've killed Ulquiorra if it wasn't for his amazing high-speed regeneration. Luckily, none of his internal organs had been ruptured, but he had lost both of his wings, legs, and one of his arms from the impact. At the very least, this would take a while to recover from.

When Ulquiorra impacted, he wouldn't have bothered to get up even if he could. He had been defeated, and unless Grimmjow could perform a miracle and defeat Dreendo, then he would be killed here. So, the bat Hollow just lay there face first in the dirt, waiting for either the release of death or the defeat of Dreendo.

And, while Ulquiorra lay there in his own personal crater, Grimmjow stood undauntedly across from Dreeendo, never backing down from any sort of fear, though he already knew that he wasn't going to win...

* * *

Off in the distance, around half a mile away, a lone two-legged figure watched the battle unfold. He breathed in the powerful reiatsu, and knew at once that he would have to intervene. He stood on a very tiny mesa that barely rose ten feet off of the landscape, and his expression didn't belay any sort of emotion.

"Looks like my fears were correct. I was hoping that when I told him that information, Dreendo wouldn't set his sights on his kingdom. But, I was too naive, hoping that the conflict between brothers would've been resolved by now, and Torobic would've moved on. At the very least though, it looks like Torobic is no longer a part of this situation, though whether he's dead or not, I don't know. Still, Naruto is no match for Dreendo at all, so I have to hurry..." the figure said.

Valicav Almazin had wandered into these parts once he heard word of a new kingdom sprouting onto this landscape. He was told from a passing Hollow that the kingdom had been destroyed by Dreendo in its early stages, but its king apparently hadn't been at the scene when it had occurred.

He hopped off the rock and stopped his ramblings when he saw an explosion erupt onto the battlefield. He broke out into a run, hoping he would arrive there before Dreendo prevailed.

He was much closer to the battlefield when he saw another explosion burst onto the scene, this time in mid-air. He watched as a bat-like Hollow plummeted to the ground, clearly dead or severely injured from that blast.

Dreendo was in sight now, clearly the one who had caused that last attack. He seemed to be standing over a fallen panther Hollow, who was barely alive and able to move. The panther shook for a moment before it collapsed, clearly defeated by the superior Hollow. All that time, Dreendo stood over them smugly, not a scratch across his body.

It was when he noticed Naruto on the ground that Dreendo began walking towards the three downed Hollow. He looked upon them like he was some kind of malevolent god, before he walked up to the panther Hollow first, raising his foot over his head to crush his skull.

The horned Hollow broke into his fastest Sonido, before appearing in front of a surprised Dreendo. Before the red Hollow could bring his foot down on Grimmjow, Valicav grasped Dreendo's leg, hoisting the other Hollow into the air and flinging him elsewhere.

Dreendo managed to land on his feet, though he still slid away almost fifty feet. He glared at the new arrival with pure hate, which even deepened when he noticed who the arrival was.

"Valicav..." he hissed, as he stared down the other Hollow.

Valicav stood his ground, before he turned back to view his descendant on the ground in a pitiful state. The two locked eyes with nothing but blank expressions, like either of them knew what to say.

It was Naruto who finally broke the silence.

"Valicav, what are you doing here?" he asked, wincing as he tried and failed to get to his feet again. The old Hollow turned away from the much younger one, seeing Dreendo stalk his way up to them.

"I decided to travel here after I had learned that some fresh new Hollow had managed to start up a kingdom in a place I recommended him to. However, I see you've managed to make Dreendo your enemy, so I'm here to step. Just sit there quietly and let me do all the work..." he trailed off.

Naruto looked like he was about to protest, but he lay his head down low in defeat, finding that there was nothing who could in the situation regardless, before he fell unconscious.

* * *

Dreendo had finally done it. Well, he shouldn't say "finally", as that implies that realistically he wouldn't be able to do this in the first place. He knew that this fox Hollow was no match for him, as a king and as a fighter.

But, he couldn't help but feel happy as both him and the bat Hollow lay defeated and at his mercy. They would both die here today, along with the annoying panther Hollow that he had just defeated.

He would finish off the panther Hollow first, him being the least of his worries and the one he didn't want to take revenge on. He walked up to them while grinning evilly the whole way, and raised his foot in preparation to finish the dirty deed.

However, just as he was about to bring his foot down in the most audacious display of overkill ever, his explosive kick was blocked, by an outsider of all things. He felt his leg get lifted into the air, before he was thrown back away from his prey, skidding and taking a look upon the newest interloper.

He hissed when he saw the disfigured Hollow. Grey skin, a horned mask, and a necklace of six bones that hung around his neck. Not to mention the buboes that coated his entire body.

"Valicav..." he hissed, recognizing the familiar Hollow immediately. He hadn't changed one bit since their last encounter, and that wasn't since... never mind. He had never had a good relationship with that one anyway.

He noticed that Valicav was putting distance between them and the downed Hollows, making it clear that he wanted to keep them from dying for some reason that Dreendo couldn't fathom.

Valicav was being his usual silent self, though he was glaring at Dreendo like he had committed some kind of mortal sin. Dreendo walked up to him, closing the distance between them.

"Valicav... don't think it's been so long that I would've forgotten you... What brings you do this neck of Hueco Mundo? Surely it isn't to protect those weaklings, _is it_?" he said casually but forcefully.

Valicav's face didn't change.

"Dreendo, Dreendo, Dreendo. Surely it isn't too much to allow these kids to live? After all, there are plenty of kingdoms within Hueco Mundo, and you haven't expanded upon yours in years. Is it so hard just letting them be?" he asked, trying to appeal to Dreendo.

Dreendo walked closer, until the two Vasto Lorde were standing five feet from each other, staring each other down.

"Yes, it is Valicav. This fox Hollow has wronged me in so many ways. For starters, he instigated a rebellion amongst my slaves by removing their medallions, which has already caused the deaths of many of my own men..." he trailed off. Valicav wasn't phased.

"Secondly, he killed my brother..." he said lightly. "Not to mention, he's read El Libro de Ciclos. He knows the weakness of my slave medallions and instigated this rebellion. In addition, he must know about the other things that Torobic mentioned about in the book..."

Valicav, after getting over the initial shock that Naruto of all Hollows has read the legendary book that even he hadn't read, smiled mockingly afterwards at Dreendo.

"So, that's what this is all about." he said. "You aren't doing this because you want to avenge your brother or anything; you're doing this because you want to take advantage of the opportunity to snatch that legendary book away from a Hollow much weaker than Torobic. You were afraid to go get it before because you know Torobic could've beaten you with all the knowledge he has..."

He turned back to look back at Naruto.

"Even with his knowledge of your weaknesses, Naruto lacks the power to be able to defeat him. The one-on-one fight you had with him speaks for itself. _Though I do wonder how he managed to defeat Torobic..._" he added the last point as an afterthought.

Dreendo looked mutinous, though he didn't outright deny the accusation. Instead, he looked to left over towards Naruto's cave complex, no doubt thinking of the secret that lay within it.

"So what if that's the case? This fox doesn't deserve to know the secrets of that book if he's that weak! Since I'm Torobic's only relative, that automatically means that the book belongs to me. To me! After I kill all of you I'm going to claim my rightful property!" he shouted, any aspect of control now completely gone.

"It looks like talking with you isn't going to work after all. I should've realized this in the beginning..." he said, lowering himself into something similar to a shinobi's taijutsu stance, something a bipedal creature like him would find advantageous.

"Whatever. The sooner we get this over with the better..." he said, holding his hand below the tubes to allow a couple more pellets to drop directly into its palm.

"Shall we?" Valicav asked, as the bones around his mask glowed six separate colors, seven if you count the one that was both black and white. His body hissed with pure energy, something that startled the unconscious and defeated Hollows awake.

"Ugh, my head..." Grimmjow moaned, clutching two of his paws to his mask. He then noticed the other Vasto Lorde, but he was too injured and stunned by reiatsu to move.

"Who's this guy?" he asked to both his king and fellow general, who had also woken up. Ulquiorra seemed to genuinely not know about the mysterious Vasto Lorde, but Naruto was a different story.

"Valicav..." he hissed, remembering Valicav's saving of him. Anyone else would've been grateful, but Naruto instead was confused and angry at being treated in such a way. Again, no less, considering how Valicav butted in to his rampage on Konoha.

Valicav walked forward some more to keep them out of harm's way. After that, he held his arms out horizontally, and his black and yellow eyes gained some strange circles around them.

"Ah, Los Ojos de Samsara. I remember it all too well, Valicav. Didn't you once say that they were the remnants of some power you had in life called the Rinnegan?" Dreendo said, catching a few more pellets that he had created.

"I see you remember well, Dreendo. While it is true my Hollow techniques have some resemblance to my old Doujutsu. Unfortunately, I lost the Rinnegan after I died, and with it I lost the ability to understand the nature of chakra. While I may have carried over some of the Rinnegan's abilities, the ability to understand the nature of reiryoku and the ability to use the Six Paths has disappeared. Reiryoku is much more powerful that chakra, but it is almost ludicrously more complex to understand. There's no way I'd be able to understand it..."

He stopped walking.

"However, despite losing the ability to use the Six Paths, and the ability to understand the energy around us, there is one ability that Los Ojos de Samsara retained. It can manipulate spiritual wavelengths to a certain degree, allowing me to pinpoint and use six separate wavelengths of reiryoku that change the properties of it. And that ability can be called in some circles..." he disappeared, his sonido being roughly the same speed as Dreendo's.

He was at Dreendo's side instantly, to which Dreendo reacted violently by throwing the pellets haphazardly at him. The field was lit up with a few small explosions again, but Valicav wasn't phased at all.

"element manipulation..." he whispered, as he grabbed onto Dreendo's shoulder and threw the other Vasto Lorde crashing into the ground. Valicav stared at him lightly, before stomping his foot down on Valicav's torso.

"Fuego Ofensivo..." he said, as flaming reiatsu gushed from the appendage that he had on Dreendo. However, the other Vasto Lorde took advantage of the time between when Valicav had taken weight off him, and he used Sonido to disappear and leviatate high in the air.

The blaze that emitted from Valicav's foot spread over the dirt over a thirty feet radius like a wildfire. Dreendo fired a Cero from his hand down at Valicav, which was charged with his explosive reiatsu.

"Tierra Defensivo..." he said, letting his earthen reiatsu flow into the dirt around, which almost immediately responded. Soon, there was almost like a small earthquake underneath their feet, until the dirt cracked, hardened, and formed a defensive sphere large enough to protect both him and the defeated Hollows almost one hundred feet away.

The Cero impacted the hardened dirt sphere with an impressive amount of force, though the explosion was not enough to breach through the wall. The explosion was contained outside of the sphere, but its radius was greater than anything that Dreendo had shown thus far.

Valicav let the dirt wall fall as soon as it was safe, panting at the amount of reiatsu he had to unleash to keep that thing intact. Dreendo's explosions were impressive to say the least, though his real merit was when he used it in hand-to-hand combat.

Dreendo seemed to think like this as well, because as soon as Valicav dropped his guard, he was in close-range, firing away with explosive punches that Valicav had to deftly avoid.

When Dreendo came in for an explosive left hook, Valicav knew he was in trouble. So, he did the only thing he could think of in such a small window of time. He matched the explosive punch with a punch of his own, coated in fire reiatsu.

In hindsight, that was probably a bad idea.

The two volatile punches collided with each other, creating an explosive discharge that neither of them could control. It exploded in their faces, throwing both Vasto Lordes backwards and wounded both of them at about the same rate.

"Such a high-level Hollow battle..." whispered Ulquiorra over to the side. "Though, that really was an amateur mistake made by this Valicav. He's clearly not as skilled as Dreendo in hand-to-hand combat..."

All three Hollows seemed to think the same thing, as Valicav's success was what their lives depended upon.

Dreendo got to this feet and laughed, clearly amused at Valicav's failure despite him being injured as well.

"What's wrong, Valicav? Have the years made you rusty? You seem a lot weaker than when you were younger..." he commented, as Valicav pulled himself to his feet.

"Relámpago Ofensivo..." he whispered to himself, as he fired a weak but very quick bolt of lightning from his finger. It took him so little time to fire it that Dreendo wasn't even able to react. It seared him right through the shoulder like a laser, crippling his left arm.

Dreendo howled as another hold was drilled through his body, this time making his arm useless.

"That was a good move. He didn't have to waste any time for handseals like he would have to while alive. That lightning bolt was so quick I don't think anyone could've seen it in time. And, by crippling Dreendo's arm, he just upped his chances in hand-to-hand combat," said Naruto begrudgingly, even though he didn't like to admit that Valicav was good in battle.

He fired off another bolt, this time not even saying the name of attack, but the near-invisible bolt of lightning didn't even hit Dreendo, who by now had wizened up and was on the move.

He did a feint attack like he was going to punch from afar with his good arm, but the last second he appeared once again at close-range. He attempted an explosive uppercut to propel Valicav into the air, but the other Vasto Lorde wasn't about to fall for such a simply trick.

He ducked his head to the left, avoiding the attack entirely. Dreendo tried to combo him with a few kicks, but he avoided as well. As he sprung back into position while Dreendo was recovering from his own attacks, and clapped his hands together while they glowed with red reiatsu. This allowed a burst of fire to come exploding from them, hitting Dreendo at close-range. The slave-holding king flew back, the flames scalding through his defense and damaging his skin.

"Hmm, it seems like Dreendo doesn't have a tactical approach to just about anything. Valicav is definitely outsmarting him every step of the way. I'm surprising such a bumbling Hollow became a Vasto Lorde..." Ulquiorra added off to the sidelines.

"You dirty bastard... You haven't changed at all since the days we spent as Baraggan's advisors. You still like to play cheap, no wonder you managed to climb the ranks in Las Noches." Dreendo growled, now steaming mad.

"Like that matters. Any one who made it to our rank as "Advisor" had to do their fair share of backstabbing in order to make it there. You were no different. I still remember you conspiring to overthrow Baraggan himself when he didn't completely share all of your ideals..." Valicav retaliated.

"I don't care about that anymore. Baraggan may have been my hero when I was a young, stupid Hollow, but nowadays I realize how much of a fool he is. He provides refuge to _bestis_. I lead my afterlife in that kingdom underneath the ideal that Baraggan would one day purge the kingdom of those Hollows. But, no. They just kept continuing to grow every single year, and I couldn't take it anymore. I had no choice but to take down Baraggan, because..." he trailed off, before he gained the most bloodthirsty look of hatred that wasn't even reserved for Naruto.

"He's the one who kept that book out my reach for so long..."

* * *

A few-hundred feet away from the site of the battle, Nnoitra twiddled his sharp fingers in the dirt, occasionally rising to take out an enemy Hollow that attempted to attack him.

His dumbass king had kicked him out of the way of that last attack, preventing him from the death he always yearned for. He supposed that wasn't right though...

He wouldn't have perished with honor, dying on his feet in the best battle he had ever had. No, he would've died like a little screaming bitch who was just in the way and complaining about his king. That wasn't the right way to go.

He grit his teeth, almost drawing blood inside his own mouth. What would become of his pride if he was going to get in the way all the time? Didn't they understand how much this hurt him?

He heard some distinct sounds over across the battlefield, and saw Harribel tearing her way through Dreendo's forces. Hmph, a woman. Didn't they understand how he couldn't stand having a woman be equal to him in battle.

No, they didn't understand that at all. They never would, as long as they lived. He supposed he was kind of grateful for the promise of power, and the chance to battle, but...

They didn't understand his inferiority complex.

* * *

Chapter 25 done.

Now, I want to clear up a few things. First of all, I do not consider Nnoitra weaker than Grimmjow simply because of his performance. Nnoitra's main strength is his defense, but that's completely useless if the foe is that much stronger than him, whereas Grimmjow's speed is not useless.

Secondly, the _him_ that has mentioned a lot through the last couple Chapters isn't Baraggan either. I thought some people might mix that up considering how Baraggan is involved.

Please Review.

**Translations and Other Features**

El Libro de Ciclos: The Book of Cycles

Los Ojos de Samsara: The Samsara Eyes

Fuego Ofensivo: Offensive Fire

Tierra Defensivo: Defensive Earth

Rélampago Ofensivo: Offensive Lightning

That's all for now.

**_Alban55_**


	26. Dreendo y Torobic

**Dragon's Wraith**: Nope.

**An extreme fan of - me: **You are correct in that there will be a time-skip. As for Naruto getting smarter, I wouldn't say he is getting fundamentally more intelligent, but he IS getting more experienced. However, he is by no means nicer than he was in earlier Chapters, just more manipulative. I've planned him to be the villain of the story, and that should become clear to anyone who doubts it within the next few Chapters.

Here's Chapter 26, the final chapter of the Reino Humanoide Arc. Chapter 27 will begin a brand new arc much different than the past ones we've seen, and it's going to be a doozy, no doubt.

I'd also like to thank my audience for helping me breach 300,000 hits to this story.

* * *

Chapter 26: Dreendo y Torobic

_Years before the main storyline..._

_Baraggan Louisenbarn wasn't always the most powerful king in all of Hueco Mundo. There was once a time when he was just like an ordinary Hollow, except with the strange desire to see Hueco Mundo change, and at the center he would rule it all. He wanted to be king of this god-forsaken place, and finally instill some order into the world that knew nothing but violence and instinct._

_He had been at least somewhat successful thus far, having recently risen to Vasto Lorde after merely twenty years as a Hollow. He had also gathered up a good number of powerful Hollows who believed in his cause, even though it was nowhere near enough to begin a kingdom._

_He mirrored Naruto's path in just about everything, minus the pure sadism that formed Naruto's personality. He had even found himself a right-hand man in the form of Valicav, though more often than not he took on the role of an advisor._

_However, Baraggan couldn't shake the feeling that he was somewhat out-of-place with the rest of them. Out of the five-hundred or so Hollows who currently followed his lead, most if not all of them were either civilized, or afraid of retribution should their bloodthirsty nature ever come out in front of the others. Valicav, on the other hand, was the closest there was to a normal Hollow. Borderline psychotic, the strong Adjuchas was only here because Baraggan got to him early, and the fact that he was clever, and gave such good advice. Baraggan doubted he could have gotten so far without him._

_The whole group seemed to be eking out sort of a nomadic lifestyle, until they could gather enough numbers to be able to form a permanent settlement. These were dark times, even for Hueco Mundo. There was a disturbing lack of a central organization, such as a kingdom, which could bring control to Hueco Mundo, even if it was only slight._

_Baraggan was aware of an empire that spanned nearly all of Hueco Mundo and could probably even rival Soul Society in power, but it had collapsed several centuries ago due to a reason unknown to Baraggan. However, he did know that one could find remnants of this once great kingdom in its capital, which was located near the ocean. And surprisingly enough, there were rumors that its emperor was still out there somewhere, biding his time._

_He turned back towards his future subjects. They seemed to be sitting stoically, either in the tents they had managed to create, or out in the open. Occasionally, one of the more restless Hollows would resist the urge to eat._

_Baraggan was still an idealistic young Hollow. He wasn't stupid enough to believe that they could unite all Hollows, given their nature, but he believed that a fair number of them cooperate with each other, and only eat those outside of their kingdom._

_His attention was cut from the condition of his subjects over to an even younger Adjuchas that seemed to approaching him easily. His appearance wasn't flattering, being an ugly grey, and he seemed almost devilish with the way his mask was formed. Still, he had a cocky and hot-blooded expression on his face, coupled with no little amount of bloodlust._

_"Baraggan," he began, not even slightly respectful in the face of his leader. "I believe we have stayed here long enough. The other Hollows are aware of our presence, and have reacted accordingly to avoid us. Prey is becoming slim, and though you became a Vasto Lorde and no longer have the need to eat, the rest of us will eventually be affected. We will soon need to find new hunting grounds," he said._

_Baraggan nodded, surprisingly understanding of their current predicament. He looked over the encampment again, and spotted that his newest recruits seemed to be faring the worst. They were a pair of young Adjuchas brothers who seemed to have become Hollows together. The younger was definitely the more laid-back of the two, and only joined him for an easier chance to get food._

_The older, however, seemed to be slightly on the power-hungry side. They both seemed to have become Adjuchas only recently, and the older one seemed to be getting intoxicated by his own power, which was admittedly very high._

_There came a shriek from the middle of the encampment, as a particularly large Adjuchas rose to his feet, howling in what could only be hunger. Baraggan grit his teeth; he knew it was only a matter of time before something like this happened._

_The Adjuchas howled violently, throwing its sinewy arms around and scattering the surprised Hollows around him._

_"I can't take this anymore! I NEED TO EAT!" he roared, as he took a bite out of a normal Hollow who was unfortunate enough not to get away. The other Hollows gave him a wide berth as he chewed the remains enthusiastically._

_The Adjuchas hissed psychotically, the small meal doing next to nothing for his hunger and bloodlust. He stalked outwards, towards the two Adjuchas brothers, who were casually sitting there._

_The Hollow roared again as he charged the two Adjuchass, and raised one of his limbs in preparation to strike the two smaller Adjuchas. One of the Adjuchas, humanoid and blood-red in color, rose from his seat with startling fluidity, and caught the Adjuchas' limb in a surprising display of strength._

_The other Adjuchas reared back in shock, but not before his opponent's arm glowed with a reiatsu that seemed as hot as the sun. The larger Adjuchas didn't have time to react as the clutched appendage exploded in a blaze of glory, now only a stump attached to the main body._

_"AGGHH! You bastard!" the Adjuchas roared before he collapsed to the ground. His future killer allowed a look of bloodlust to pass through his face, while his brother watched the fight stoically off to the side._

_Without saying a single word, the humanoid Adjuchas wrapped his hand around the downed Adjuchas throat squeezing tightly while allowing the hot reiatsu to glow vibrantly. Then, all of a sudden, he allowed it to explode, creating a fountain of blood and a now headless Adjuchas._

_The other Hollows in the camp murmured to themselves, all the while backing themselves away from the battle's victor. He went back to join his stoic brother, but not before noticing that both Baraggan and Valicav had their eyes on him. Baraggan was watching him as stoically as his brother, while Valicav seemed to have a look of glee on his face, as if this was a Hollow whom he could control._

_The two top Hollows looked at each other in understanding, before Baraggan gestured his advisor to follow. As they approached the two, the look of stoicism on both of their faces disappeared into a look of respect._

_They bowed deeply, each of them muttering, "Baraggan-sama, Valicav-sama..."_

_Valicav snickered, but Baraggan said nothing for a few seconds._

_"You two... what are your names?" he asked finally, his tone never betraying anything unpleasant, just a simple curiosity. The two weaker Hollows in front of him answered immediately._

_"Dreendo..." said the older brother, while the younger one muttered "Torobic."_

_"Dreendo and Torobic, eh? Those were some superb fighting skills you just displayed right there, Dreendo. It would be perfect, because I'm feeling a little lack of authority in these Hollows. The two of us can only handle so much, so I need some positions of power other than myself and Valicav..." he explained to the disbelieving Adjuchas, who knew where this was going._

_"I think you two are perfect for the job..."_

* * *

A stream of lightning connected with Dreendo's arm, singing it somewhat seriously. He was just in time to stop one of Valicav's horns from impaling him, but couldn't stop the tricky and cunning lightning attack that followed.

"What's wrong, Dreendo? You never could keep up with me, even in your prime while an advisor for Baraggan," Valicav taunted, trying to get the words to sting close to home.

"Says the Hollow who had everything taken away from him. My kingdom is still intact, unlike yours, thanks to the stable influx of besti slaves. But, you wouldn't know about it, would you, since you and that pathetic Baraggan never supported the use of slavery." Dreendo retorted, creating a lance of explosive reiatsu and launching it at Valicav.

The Vasto Lorde avoided it easily, though the attack engulfed several fighting Hollows where it fell a good distance away. He was about to follow up with an explosive punch, but Valicav beat him to it.

"Agua Defensivo..." he muttered, throwing a not too impressive splash of water onto the battlefield. However, at the sight of it, Dreendo ceased his attack. He knew what that was; the water that could nullify any type of energy attack, including his explosions. True enough, the water glowed a bright green, giving it an unnatural hue.

The water covered the distance between the two combatants, and Dreendo knew he couldn't touch it, lest he lose the ability to use his strongest attacks. He needed to act quickly, before Valicav followed up with his. . .

The humanoid king noticed Valicav go into a stance he was all too familiar with, and panicked against his will. He used to Sonido to cross the gap of water without touching it, but it was too late.

"Agua Offensivo..." Valicav said, raising his hands in the air as the water came to life in the form of large bubbles that levitated in the air.

"_Shit. . ._ " Dreendo said, as the bubbles morphed into little needles that were threatening to rain down upon him. He Sonido'd into the air and darted away, but the water then morphed into a tentacle which travelled at great speeds towards him. Dreendo attempted to buck it off of him, but the tentacle was too versatile and speedy even for him, and the strange greenish water wrapped itself around his left arm, which was the easiest place for it to capture. The water swung him around in the air for a while, before throwing and smashing him into the earth, before seeping in the arm.

Dreendo gasped as the water seeped into his arm. His left arm was now next to useless in the fight, as the seeping of the water negated his ability to use anything but physical attacks.

Physically attacks seemed to be what Valicav was going for though, as he didn't give Dreendo any time to recovered before appearing in his face, and slamming his powerful fist into the face of the weakened Vasto Lorde.

It would definitely leave a mark, but Dreendo wasn't down for the count. He failed to notice the fox Hollow that was getting to his feet after being knocked unconscious...

* * *

_"Now, make sure you two find something interesting down there. We don't want to return to Baraggan empty-handed..." called Valicav to the two Hollows who were exploring a cave complex near the sea they had recently discovered. Despite being top advisors for Baraggan's kingdom, they had been ordered to lead an expedition team to the far east. Valicav, itching for adventure and a fight or two, wouldn't hear about being left behind._

_The other Hollows around them gave grunts of agreement, prompting Dreendo to lash out in annoyance, while Torobic simply looked on ahead towards his goal._

_"Figures that most of the Hollows accompanying us would be animal Hollows..." he muttered to himself. He was definitely getting annoyed with them, after noticing that they seemed to be much rowdier than humanoid Hollows. He had to train these assholes, for God's sake._

_He noticed a few grunts ahead of him; Torobic seemed to have taken out a few enemy Hollows. This proved that this cave complex was inhabited, but he doubted anything there would pose a real threat towards them._

_"Yeah, yeah, we'll find something to bring back to Baraggan so this expedition wasn't a giant waste of time for everyone," called back Dreendo, not really caring if Valicav had heard him or not. _

_The humanoid Adjuchas was getting a lot grumpier after many years in Baraggan's forces. He had joined for power, and was even awarded a high position in the kingdom that gave him importance over the other Hollows. So, why the hell didn't he feel much stronger than the day he was recruited?_

_It was because his king was always turning his attention to the weaker Hollows instead of him. Where was the power that Baraggan had promised him all those years ago? It was given to the new Hollows that were rapidly joining the kingdom, most of them animal Hollows._

_He was cut from his thoughts by his brother, who told him that they should continue moving. His brother was an animal Hollow too, he realized, taking the shape of large, grey ox. He had adjusted reasonably well to Las Noches, never demanding any power like he had, yet he still managed to grow stronger than him._

_"Yeah, I'm coming..." he called unenthusiastically, the voice drowning out whatever Valicav had called back towards him. He didn't know whether Valicav was still talking after a while, because they had moved deeper into the cave so that all voices from the surface would be drowned out completely._

_Dreendo was thoroughly surprised about this place, though he didn't let it show. It was Valicav's suggestion that they explore this place, probably just to make them do more work. The blood-red Hollow had simply expected an empty cave with a few Hollow here and there, but the place actually seemed to be some remnant of an ancient Hollow civilization. There were torches on the wall that lit the way, and occasionally they would run into a few wall paintings that seemed to tell some kind of story, though he couldn't figure out what._

_Torobic wasn't paying any attention to the walls, though that was just like him to not really care about anything. He was being cautious enough to stay on his guard though, as they both knew an attack could come at any time._

_They descended down this long spiral staircase that seemed to be the main "hub" of the complex, until the two Hollows came across this large, worn-out door. It seemed weathered with age, but the few ornate designs it had left on it seemed to indicate that it led to somewhere important._

_Torobic clutched the handle carefully and pulled, allowing the door to creak open with a small degree of effort. He peered inside, before his eyes focused on something that apparently was of interest to him._

_"What is it? Do you see something, Torobic?" Dreendo asked, when he wasn't getting a response from his brother. The younger Hollow turned back towards Dreendo, his eyes fraught with confusion, but thankfully not worry._

_"A... book?" Torobic said lightly, his voice just as confused as his eyes. Dreendo raised an eyebrow at the odd proclamation._

_"A book? What's a book doing in a place like this?" he asked._

_"I don't know..." said Torobic, as he swung the door open. "But whatever it is, it seems to be really important. I mean, just look at it!" he pointed into the room, where Dreendo saw the ornate, golden-bound book sitting on a crude pedestal of sorts, almost like it was a shrine._

_Dreendo stepped into the room cautiously, subconsciously thinking that this was some kind of trap that would set off the moment he touched the thing. He vaguely noted a stone chair of sorts in the back of the humongous chamber, but it was unoccupied. He sauntered up to the book carefully, scrutinizing it before he came to the conclusion that it was safe to touch. The torches in the background shone on the book, giving it a sort of holy (or unholy) feel._

_After a tense few minutes, he reached out and grabbed the book, grimacing while thinking about the trap he set off. Torobic, who was still outside the room, bunkered down and prepared for it as well. However, when the trap never came, Dreendo was able to get a good look at what he had taken._

_It was lighter in his hands than he had expected, and as he flipped it over onto its front cover, he noticed that there was no title. Just a strange cross-like pattern that seemed to abundant all over the cover of the book, its spine included. He caressed the spine of the book lightly, the strange vibe he was getting from the tome intensifying._

_He was about to open it, but as he did he felt a strange chill creep down his spine, just like he was being watched by something. His brother seemed to be feeling it too, but it went beyond a simple hunch, as he saw a pair of mustard-yellow eyes peer at them from a small opening to the right of the throne._

_"Dreendo, look. Enemy!" Torobic shouted, pointing to the eyes that panned from Dreendo over to Torobic in the instant that he said that. Dreendo dropped the book immediately, before falling into a fighting stance to meet the current threat._

_He noticed the eyes right before they disappeared, and a solemn figure walked casually out of the cave complex._

_"Probably just a weak Hollow looking for an easy meal," he thought to himself, before a crushing reiatsu, even greater than Baraggan's both paralyzed him and his brother. The humanoid Adjuchas fell to his knees, breathing in heavily from the pure force that weighed down on them._

_The figure came into full sight, and what a sight it was. A chimera-like Hollow, one that was clearly a Vasto Lorde, walked out of the small passageway, grinning at the downed Hollows. Dreendo managed to raise his head barely, taking in the Hollow who had the body of a lion and the mask of a snake, while two antlers protruded out of the reptilian mask. Its body was a deep yellow, going along with the lion theme it's lower body was going for._

_It was strange, but Dreendo thought he saw this particular Hollow on some of the cave drawings on their way here. It was crude, yes, but there was no mistaking that body. Another strange thing was that he always seemed to be surrounded by a large key at his foot, while a tome was tucked underneath his arm._

_"Well, well, well. It seems I have some rare visitors to my domain..." the chimera spoke, its voice a mixture of the hissing of a snake and the growling of a lion. He released the pressure on the two weaker Hollows, though they didn't dare attack him after that display of power._

_"It seems you're not completely stupid. Almost any other Hollow would've attacked me right there," he mused, a sly grin coming onto his face as spotted the book at Dreendo's feet._

_"But, it seems you've taken an interest in El Libro de Ciclos. I don't take very kindly to those who would steal my belongings, especially since that book contains all of MY records from when I ruled," he commented, his voice raising a bit near the end._

_"W-Wait... s-so you w-wrote it..." wheezed Torobic as he climbed to his feet, still looking worse for wear. The chimera's attitude seemed to dampen at that, and he sat on his throne, slouching a little._

_"Yeah... it's my compilation of all the discoveries I made during my time as ruler. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I made quite a few discoveries during that time..." he trailed off, and no one said anything for a little while._

_"...But it doesn't matter. None of it. I lost it all when I overestimated my own abilities, and attacked the Soul Society... My kingdom, and all of the Hollows in it."_

_Dreendo's eyes widened significantly._

_"W-Wait, kingdom. **Your** kingdom? Then that means... the rumors were..." he trailed off._

_"Allow me to introduce myself. The name's Reporo, ruler of the Ancient Kingdom you've probably heard so much about. Indeed, I once ruled the vast majority of Hueco Mundo, and I even had the power to rival Soul Society... or so I thought." he explained._

_"At the height of my power, I discovered the secret to Arrancarisation, and with that, I was unstoppable. Around five-hundred years ago, I attacked Soul Society in search of another thing that I made a discovery about. The attack went somewhat successful. With my forces, we managed to kill nine of the thirteen Captains, and eliminate over half of the total Shinigami. I even made it to the realm of the Spirit King, in order to consolidate my victory..."_

_"..But the royal guard, coupled with Yamamoto-Genryuusai was too much for me. Our forces were repelled, and the objective I searched for fell out of my grasp. I just barely managed to escape back into Hueco Mundo, but my beautiful kingdom was in tatters. I have lived in regret ever since..." Reporo finished. Dreendo suspected that the old Vasto Lorde simply wanted someone to talk to after all these years._

_"In hindsight, I have nothing left. Everything in that book I already know. So, thinking about it, you can have it. These last five hundred years have humbled me completely, and if someone can find a use for my discoveries, go for it. The secret of Arrancarisation is in there; you'll be able to do great things if you become an Arrancar."_

_Dreendo stared numbly at the book, never having interrupted during Reporo's tale. He was just gonna give it to us. According to him, the secrets behind this book were incredible. Hell, it would be very valuable if the only thing contained here was the secret to Arrancarisation._

_"Please, leave me be. Take it and go..." Reporo said solemnly, clearly taken back by all the memories he just recounted to them. Dreendo didn't say a word, deciding to leave the old Hollow to wallow in his misery. _

_He picked up the tome, apparently the last vestige of the greatest Hollow in existence, and left, leaving the old Hollow down there alone._

_As they headed back to the surface, their eyes were glued to the text in awe at what Reporo had discovered. The secret to Arrancarisation was the main topic of the book, and already Dreendo's mind was swimming with the amount of power he could obtain. So much more than what he could have in Baraggan's kingdom._

_Torobic seemed to have the same idea, at least somewhat, and it was rare to take this kind of interest in power. As they neared the exit, they could see one of their Hollows looking back at them before he scampered off, no doubt to tell Valicav that they have returned._

_"So, you have returned. I think it's about time we head back to Las Noches. We've been out here long enough, and Baraggan can't go more than two years without us. Why don't you tell me your findings as we head back?" said Valicav._

_Dreendo and Torobic looked at each other, before Dreendo stepped up with arms around the book._

_"No, I don't think we'll be going back."_

_"Eh?"_

_Dreendo smiled evilly. _

_"I have a book holding the most powerful secrets to Hueco Mundo in my hands. Why would I want to go back to some ass-backwards kingdom that hasn't made any advancements in years..."_

_"... I think it's time that Hueco Mundo learned of the name Dreendo!"_

* * *

Naruto awoke with a splitting headache, but that wasn't important right now. What _was_ important was that that bastard Dreendo was still out there and kicking, and that Valicav had shamed him immensely.

He launched a Cero out of frustration, which clipped two more fighting Hollows and alerted both Dreendo and Torobic of his presence.

"Oh, so that kid's awake again... " muttered Dreendo, more out of frustration than amusement. Valicav seemed somewhat perterbed by it as well, as he knew Naruto would be a handful if he were awake.

"DREENDO!" he roared, rushing into battle again, uncaring of his downed comrades. He only had one goal right about now, and that was eliminate the enemy in front of him.

He attempted to tear into Dreendo as fast as he could, scratched, tearing, biting, and firing Ceros at the Vasto Lorde. But, Dreendo took them all with fluid movement, proving how feeble such attacks were to him. But, the arrogant Vasto Lorde missed one thing.

"Fuego Ofensivo!" roared Valicav, as he slammed his fiery fist into Dreendo's torso, which propelled the king forward, allowing Naruto to strike him with his hind leg up into the air.

The fox sonido'd up there, raising both claws and slashing across his torso with them, creating deep gashes that formed an X pattern across his torso. The king fell to earth, but Valicav knew he wouldn't be defeated by that, so he prepared for it.

"Agua Ofensivo..." he cried, spreading a pool of the deadly water across the ground. Naruto caught the hint of where Dreendo was supposed to land, and before the king himself could recover, he was kicked downwards in the pool of water. The water almost scalded Dreendo's skin, but it began to yet again seep into it, stripping him of all his explosive powers.

* * *

_For a time, Dreendo and Torobic ruled together, forming a surprisingly stable kingdom on the island where Dreendo's current kingdom lay. Both of the brothers managed to rise to Vasto Lorde using the book's help. But, as time went on, Dreendo started to get greedy trying to figure out the secret of Arrancarisation, while Torobic began to tire of being in his brother's shadow as supreme leader of the kingdom, and his apparent racism.  
_

_"Dreendo, is this really necessary?" asked Torobic, seeing the numerous slave Hollows digging a deep burrow beneath the island. Being an animal Hollow himself, he was very uncomfortable with his brother's methods, but never raised this concern to him personally._

_"You know it is, Torobic. The book says that in order to become Arrancar, one must find of the eighty-six Bolas de Evolución that have been here since the beginning of Hueco Mundo. These orbs of light forcibly remove the boundaries between Shinigami and Hollow, allowing the Hollow to become Arrancar. While some Hollows have stumbled across the Bolas and become Arrancar unintentionally, this will be the first mass Arrancarisation since the great times of the Ancient Kingdom. It is completely and utterly necessary..."_

_"And the diagram of Hueco Mundo left in the book detail the locations of eighty-five of the eighty-six Bolas. And the closest one is underneath our very island, which is why I am using the animal slaves to dig it up."_

_"But..."_

_"Torobic, I am the older brother, and more powerful than you are. You may be second-in-command, but I can still turn you into an animal slave like the besti that you are! So I suggest you stop arguing with me before I lose my temper..." he said curtly._

_Torobic glared at him intensely, but Dreendo paid him no mind. The younger brother of the two swept back into the castle, his mind made up on something he had to do._

_Later that night, the shadow of an ox crept through the castle's walls into a small chamber, where El Libro de Ciclos set itself upon a pedestal, much like the time when Reporo was the holder of the book._

_"No security system as usual. It's a wonder how my stupid brother hasn't been assassinated yet." he muttered to himself, grabbing the book easily and without any traps being set off. He was aware that Dreendo would come after him, so he took the next half-hour to write his brother's weaknesses in the side margins for future reference._

_He crept out of the room and into the main hallway again, watching himself for guards who might answer to Dreendo instead of him. He almost sighed in relief before a low voice resounded next to him, its tone filled with betrayed hatred._

_"Going somewhere, Torobic?" it asked._

_Torobic's breath caught in his throat, as he turned and laid eyes upon his brother, who was surrounded by a platoon of Adjuchas guards and glaring at him fiercely. Torobic backed up and held the book protectively._

_Dreendo waved his hands, sending his personal set of guards out at his traitorous brother. Torobic looked around for an escape before the whole kingdom would be after him, but he had to cut off his thinking to hit the first guard in the jugular._

_"There!" he thought, seeing a glass window on the other side. He propelled himself past the line of guards, but he was stopped at the window by his similarly skilled brother, who tried to cut him off with an explosive punch. He parried the thing easily, before throwing himself through the window and levitating in mid-air. He gallivanted about the castle, looking for the nearest leviathan Hollow so he could escape towards the mainland. The cave complex where Reporo was sounded like a good place to hole up, and prepare himself for Dreendo's retribution._

_"Don't let him escape! He has El Libro de Ciclos. We need that book to tell us exactly how to active the Bolas de Evolución. We won't be able to evolve our forces without it!" Dreendo roared, sometimes even forcing his guards to get a move-on._

_Dreendo would attempt to capture his brother sixteen times after Torobic holed himself into the cave complex. Each time would be a failure, and Dreendo would gain a deeper hatred for animal Hollows._

_He also never saw El Libro de Ciclos ever again._

* * *

"Shit, that was a close one. I'm glad that didn't-" Dreendo cut himself off as he realized finally just where he was sitting. In a pool of Valicav's dangerous water, which had all soaked into his skin.

"_NONONONONONONONO!"_ he screamed in his mind, baking away from the pool of water and back into the dirt again. A bead of sweat rolled down his face, and that was when he noticed both Naruto and Valicav looking at him, evil grins on their face. Valicav stepped forward, prompting Dreendo to step away, his true cowardly colors revealed now that he was powerless.

The former Rikudou Sennin punched, causing a sickening crack to appear on Dreendo's mask. He flew back several yards from the punch, landing in a heap a ways. It was Naruto's turn now, and the fox appeared in his face in an instant, again not giving Dreendo any time to recover. Normally, an Adjuchas like him wouldn't be a problem, even in his weakened state, but he was so worn out from fighting that even Naruto could lay a beat down on him.

The fox Hollow slashed him across the eyes, causing a cry of pain and a spasm of pleasure from Naruto. He clutched his mask, desperately trying to keep the blood out of his eyes, but to no avail. He was blinded, and with no way to stop it.

Although he couldn't see anymore, he definitely felt his airways being constricted as Naruto hoisted up the feeble king easily using only his front right paw. Dreendo coughed up blood violently, and gurgled loudly. The rest of the onlookers noticed the commotion over there, and slowly but surely, the fighting died down at the mesmerizing display of Dreendo about to be defeated.

Dreendo's vassals had a look of fear on their face for the condition of their king, while those on Naruto's side were simply confused about what was happening.

"W-Wait, we can talk this over, Naruto. I-I swear I'll leave you alone! I'll even give you my minions as slaves. Just please let me live! I don't need that book anymore. I-In fact, you can have it! Just-" he gurgled out his ramblings, though Naruto wasn't paying attention to any of it.

"N-No..." he whispered, as the younger Hollow tightened his grip around the Vasto Lorde's neck, his choking get more intense. He passed through muscle and sinew easily, and Dreendo felt it as his bones began to crack.

"Bleahh-" he moaned, as his vision began to get very blurry. Naruto gave him one last shit-eating grin, but wasn't even gracing his presence or status with any kind of words.

_Squelch!_

The Hollows around them gasped in surprise, as Naruto's paws didn't just go through bone, but obliterated Dreendo's neck completely. It was an explosion of blood and muscle tissue that scattered in a nearly ten foot radius around the pair. Naruto became drenched in the life fluid, but with his red coat of fur and armor, it wasn't that noticable.

Dreendo's head fell to the ground with a thump, lifeless eyes still screaming in agony. Naruto grinned at it, and picked up the head and placed the head next to the body.

He noticed Valicav walking up to him, but he was still reveling in his victory to attack the other Vasto Lorde for shaming him.

"About time someone took care of that asshole..." he muttered, as Naruto smirked at the body. His ears perked up at the low scream, and noticed that Dreendo's troops were scattering in every direction, desperate to get away now that their king had fallen.

"Cowards, every last one of them..." he muttered, tripping one running in his direction before tearing his throat out. "They're just like humans..." he said distastefully.

"Well, they _are_ humanoid," pointed out Valicav.

Naruto hummed to himself. "Yeah, I guess it's a given that they're very similar to humans. I think I've decided that I don't need any Hollows like them fighting for me..."

"Well, do what you want then. I've had a bone to pick with Dreendo for quite a long time, and I've fulfilled my desire to bring him down. The rest is all you, so I think I'm gonna wander around Hueco Mundo some more..." he said before stopping.

"... Oh, by the way, since it is your kill, that means that the body is all yours. This would be your second Vasto Lorde meal, would it not?" said Dreendo, as the last winds just came out as a whisper on the wind as he sonido'd away from the battlefield.

Naruto didn't even notice him leave.

* * *

"Oh man, this is gonna be good..." said Naruto with glee, as he stared down at the carcass of Dreendo. He peered over to the side, and noticed that any of his generals hadn't woken up yet. Oh well, he could tend to them later.

Dreendo's troops had shuffled out completely, but Naruto swore he would kill them all later. Right now, all there was around were the Hollows in his kingdom, still staring at him in disbelief that he had taken out a Vasto Lorde of all Hollows. They seemed to be waiting for his next move.

Naruto didn't need any more prodding. He ate the head first, it being the most delectable to him, before he began tearing and chewing into the body. The other Hollows looked at him in envy, but he didn't pay them any mind. He was so engrossed on the great flavor.

He tore out a rib of meat and ate it, savoring every last bite, before a sudden feeling came over him. The bone clattered to the ground, it and the leftovers of Dreendo being forgotten as Naruto began to spasm.

It felt like he was going puke, but he simply fell to his knees and began breathing heavily. His mustard-yellow eyes rolled to the back of his head behind his mask, and little wisps of orange reiatsu began oozing off the young Hollow.

He gave a hideous roar, even more primal than his normal ones, towards the heavens, scattering all the Hollows in the vicinity. And then, what was just a little reiatsu became a full-on torrent of it, forcing the weaker Hollows to their knees to begin breathing heavily along with their king.

The orange reiatsu concentrated where Naruto, becoming a tornado of the stuff with a torrent of it blowing outwards towards the mass of Hollows. In the center, a figure glowing an even brighter orange took on a remarkable resemblance.

The confused Hollows stared at the spectacle in pure awe, not realizing what was happening until they finally came to their senses.

And when they realized what was happening, they all dropped to their knees and bowed.

* * *

End. Woo, the Dreendo arc is done.

The fight was a little anti-climactic in my opinion, but I think I closed it off quite well.

Review and give me your opinions, please!

**Translations and Other Features**

Agua Defensivo: Defensive Water

Agua Ofensivo: Offensive Water

Bola de Evolución: Ball of Evolution

That's all for now, so see you.

**_Alban55_**


	27. El Reino Animal

**A**: I'm thinking Baraggan.

**An extreme fan of -me**: I doubt he will actually meet Reporo. Reporo is more like a posthumous character, meaning its not his presence that's important in the story, but rather the things he did and what he wrote down in the book.

Arrancarisation, like "the process of changing something into something else, such as "Hollowfication". And Amenaza is the Spanish word for "menace", but it can also mean "threat".

Hello guys, here we are for Chapter 27 of Amenaza. With the Dreendo arc finally drawn to a close, we can get started on an arc that I personally have been looking forward to writing for a long time. Although I'm not going to split this story in two parts, this arc could effectively be the last arc in "Part I".

Just a fair warning, some of the later Chapters in this arc will not be for the faint of heart. I will put a more thorough warning when we get to those Chapters, so with that said, let's get started.

* * *

Chapter 27: El Reino Animal

The swirling vortex of reiatsu that was once Naruto continued to buffet around for over five minutes. The other Hollows didn't dare move from their position to get a closer view, as they would surely be torn to pieces the instant they touched it.

They didn't even move a muscle from their prone from bowing, as they knew that their king deserved no less than their full respect with what he was about to become.

As the vortex of reiatsu finally began to dissipate, the Hollows around watched with bated breath, almost begging to know what had happened to their king, or whether he was alright.

Although the torrent had disappeared, there was still the glowing orange reiatsu figure standing where the torrent once blew. It seemed to bear some resemblance to Naruto, though it was difficult to tell because it was morphing, of all things.

The reiatsu figure, which the Hollows now realized was their king, was rapidly going from a quadrupedal being into a bipedal being, though the being was almost a silhouette, so they had trouble picking out what was happening beyond that.

There was a loud cracking noise, and the Hollows winced, guessing that the figure was having its bones rearranged throughout the transformation process. However, the figure didn't morph anymore after that, and it howled towards the Hueco Mundo crescent moon, before slamming its orange limbs into the dirt and drawing up an enormous cloud of dust that obscured the view of it from others. But, beyond that cloud, the orange reiatsu coating the thing's body was fading, and when the dust cloud dispersed completely, the Hollows took in their king's new form.

He stood on two legs, but managed to look just as feral as when he was an Adjuchas. He was slightly on the short side, measuring in at only about five and a half feet tall, though that didn't make him look any less menacing. The vulpine mask that adorned his face had flattened out, losing its snout while its ears rose vertically in points instead of being combed back along his snout. There was red war paint that ran down from the ears, to below his eyes and towards the bridge of his nose, where they curled into twin spirals on opposite sides. His teeth were all sharp incisors, which had curled up into a toothy grin that managed to be even more psychotic now. He remained red in color, but this time the light bony armor covered every portion of his body, leaving no fur visible. Even the claws on both his hands and feet were covered in the stuff, which made them seem even sharper.

His nine tails waved around freely, not looking even slightly out of place on a body that small. They too were covered in the red armor in every portion except the tips. The tips of the tails were hollow and open, the only material there being the bare minimum structure. These had hollow, open lines running down the length of the tail into his main body. It was almost like the tips of the tail were lanterns, the flame meant to be contained within them.

His two prominent shoulder spikes remained in place, along with numerous other spines all along his elbows, knees, and hips. But, there was a completely new addition to his body on his torso.

Below his Hollow hole, where Kyuubi's seal once lay and on a much thinner layered portion of his body, there was an large spiral of red reiatsu. It glowed and crackled with energy, and curiously enough, his shoulder spines ran underneath his skin to connect to the outside of the spiral. The spiral was flanked by sharp points of armor that resembled a predator's jaws, which were located on the upper layer of his armor.

"V-Vasto Lorde..." muttered one of the Hollows closest to the powerful Hollow. The new Vasto Lorde heard it, and he laughed slowly. First, just a small chuckle, but this soon evolved into full-blown laughter, which he had directed straight towards the heavens themselves. It was the happiest he had laughed in years, which was saying a lot for a Hollow like this. But, like anyone who stays around this particular Hollow for long periods of time, it makes one on edge. Like his happiness isn't _supposed _to be a good thing.

He didn't say a word, but he didn't need to in order to show his glee towards the situation. Things were beginning to look up for him now, and at this rate, forming the most powerful kingdom in Hueco Mundo would be a snap.

Naruto's evolution had stirred awake all four of his generals awake, and they were surprised as everyone else to see their superior as a full-on Vasto Lorde. The sight was... gratifying, to say the least.

He turned and looked at the cave complex, his new capital. A lot of work would have to be done to this place if he ever wanted to turn it into the sprawling empire that he had wanted. Also, this battle with Dreendo had opened his eyes to the worthlessness of humanoid Hollows. There was no way he was going to allow any non-animal Hollows in his kingdom. Animal Hollows were more in touch with themselves anyway, not fancying themselves as humans.

He would form the anti-thesis to Dreendo's kingdom: The Reino Animal, a kingdom of nothing but animal Hollows! This would also serve as a mockery towards the dead Vasto Lorde.

There was also the matter of Konoha. He wasn't satisfied with taking their lives anymore. He had to do something _special_ for them, so he could fully enjoy his sweet revenge. He would create the perfect plan for them, no matter how long it took, no matter what methods he had to use, and no matter who he had to sacrifice.

And the good news was, he had all the time in the world for it as well...

* * *

To say Minato was panicking right now would be an understatement. Even if this wasn't his first time going through this, the shock value of it all had hardly diminished with experience.

Besides, it's not like adding a new member to the family should ever be a bland experience, and it wasn't. It was always, always, always a stressful, yet rewarding experience that paid off in the end.

However, in his heart, Minato always knew that they would have more kids the instant he and Kushina had both learned that children _could_ be born within the Soul Society. Though they had decided to wait a little while until they had gotten properly adjusted within the afterlife, what better time to have a kid when his wife had become the Vice-Captain of the 3rd Division, after their Captain died and the Vice-Captain took his place.

But, it turns out that the birth experience wasn't any difference from how it was in live. From the sounds of moaning and screaming inside the maternity ward, it was still painful as hell, and the woman was more or less a wild animal to her husband/lover. With a woman like Kushina, it was this times ten, which was why Minato was both battered and bruised. She had even thrown the 4th Division members who were supposed to be helping with the birth across the room.

Though, in the end, despite all the jitters and pain, it was worth it to hear that first cry and the calming of the mother as the birthing process finally subsided, and he was able to breathe easily for the first time in 24 hours.

Yep, all worth it to hear those first two cries come from over on the bed.

"_Two cries?" _he thought, slowly comprehending exactly what that meant.

A 4th Division member noticed his being on the ground after being knocked away by Kushina, and quickly helped the 3rd Seat of the 5th Division to his feet. She gestured over to his wife, who was happily holding two babies, a soft, maternal smile on her face.

"Congratulations, Minato-sama..." said the medical Shinigami, a soft smile on her face. "Your wife has successfully given birth to a set of twins. One a girl, and the other a boy..."

Minato felt his mouth run dry, as the 4th Division member allowed the former shinobi to approach the bed, and catch his first glimpse at his second and third children.

They were both wrapped up in bundles, obscuring what type of build they had from him. But, he could tell that despite being different genders, they looked almost exactly the same as one another, except for the obvious gender differences. They both had tufts of red hair on their heads, the exact same shade. The one on the left, the older twin, opened her eyes to show a soft cerulean that stared back at him with wonder. Her slightly younger brother mimicked her over to the right, his blue eyes being slightly more piercing.

Minato bent down and gave both babies kisses on the foreheads, prompting them both to giggle in unison. Kushina also giggled at the display of affection, as her husband pulled back to look at all three of them warmly. Yet, none of them, even the nurses and 4th Division members found any words necessary to add to this touching family.

"_Things are beginning to look up even more..._" Minato thought, as he turned a wistful eye to the ceiling, before turning back towards his wife so they could settle on names.

* * *

_Sixty years later..._

"Story daddy, story!" a little red-headed girl squealed, as her father carried her into her particularly large bedroom that she shared with her twin brother. Ever since Kushina had become a Vice-Captain sixty years ago, and had given birth to twins; the family had moved out of the Shinigami barracks, and bought their own mansion, near the other noble houses of Soul Society.

Minato smiled before holding her at arm's length, placing her down on her twin bed. Her brother was already in his bed to the right of her, but he was still awake, clearly also waiting for the story his sister so coveted.

Minato chuckled at the hyperactive girl, before kissing her on the forehead, walking to her brother and doing the same to him, and then moving up to the nightstand between the two beds. He opening the drawer, seeing the stack of books that were somewhat disorganized.

"Don't worry, Akane-chan. I haven't forgotten about your story..." Truth be told, the twins had already heard most of these stories several times. They were both going on sixty years old after all, even they were still mentally and physically four to five years old. Sometimes he hated how everyone here aged so slowly, but most of the time he just enjoyed the time he had with his family.

"Hmm, here's a book I haven't read you, Akane-chan, Taiki-kun..." he said with mild surprise, thinking that he truly had read all the children's books that had in the house. Akane started clapping enthusiastically at the thought of a new story, while Taiki merely smiled a truly radiant grin.

He read over the title of the book once again, grinning and laughing to himself lightly.

"I can't believe I've never read this story to you two before. It's a classic tale renowned throughout Soul Society, practically a legend in its own right," he said. Akene seemed to get even more excited, getting the feeling that she was in for a good story.

Minato cleared his throat, bringing rapt attention from his two children.

"Once upon a time, the Shinigami in Soul Society lived in harmony with one another, vanquishing Hollows and ferrying good souls to the afterlife, where they could live in happiness with one another..." he paused; the darker aspects of the job were glossed over, but that was to be expected from a children's book.

"But, one day a powerful Hollow king, deep from the recesses of Hueco Mundo found his way into Soul Society, and using his army, he spread terror across the peaceful land..." Both of the children gasped at the horror of the realization. Minato let a soft smile come onto his face.

"With great power at his command, he managed to conquer nearly all of Soul Society, and obtain what he wanted. A great key, more sought out than anything else, that could break the reincarnation cycle of souls and alter the flow of them between Soul Society, the human world, Hueco Mundo, and the realm where bad souls go. With all of his deeds done, the Hollow turned to his final goal, the realm of the Spirit King, where he could awaken the key's power and bring his plan to send all the good souls to the realm of bad souls!" he raised his voice for dramatic effect. Taiki looked slightly frigtened, though Akane had covered her mouth and an exaggerated gasp.

"But, as all hope was lost for both Shinigami and Hollow, a strange old Shinigami appeared in front of the Hollow. Using his formidable powers, he vanquished the king Hollow, and his army, back into Hueco Mundo from whence he came. Putting the key back in its rightful place, he restored order throughout the land for all souls to live happily ever after. The End..." he said, showing the two children a picture of an old Shinigami fighting an angular chimera-like Hollow with a crown.

Akane squealed in delight at the heroic tale, jumping out of her bed and brandishing an invisible sword. It was no secret that she wanted to be a Shinigami just like her parents. Minato laughed out loud and scooped up the hyperactive girl, placing her back in the bed.

"Easy there, my little Shinigami. It's just a made-up tale." he said to calm the girl down. She snuggled back underneath the covers of her bed, once again smiling at her father.

"Goodnight, Akane, Taiki. I love you..." he whispered. Both kids responded with a simple "Love you too, daddy." before they closed their eyes, and Minato wandered from the room after taking one last look at them.

As he shut the door quietly, he heard light giggling right to him.

"No matter how many times I see it, that always gets me..." Kushina chuckled. Minato blushed slightly, now realizing that she had been watching him read the story since the beginning.

"I didn't take you as the type to get so mushy..." she mused, laughing again at her husband. It was meant as a joke, of course. She had seen him read his kids stories many times.

"Well, what do you expect? Both of them are going to become fine Shinigami one day, and I want to hold on to them as long as I can, especially since..." he trailed off, a look of sadness appearing on his visage.

Kushina mimicked that expression, grasping the implications of what he was saying immediately.

"Naruto..." she trailed off like her husband, and Minato swore he could see a small tear appear in her eye. However, as soon as it had come, the sadness clouding over her expression had disappeared. She placed a hand of comfort on her husband's shoulder, which he thankfully grasped.

"I know our last search for him was unsuccessful, but we shouldn't give up hope, Minato. He's out there in Soul Society somewhere. It's a large place, and we're lucky we have the resources to search for him. Most people don't get a chance like this. We can only tell ourselves that wherever he is, he's happy, and living a good and fruitful life..." she whispered.

"Yeah, you're right. We should count ourselves lucky we're able to see so many of the family and friends that we had in life. I just want us to be reunited with our son..." he smiled sadly.

"We will, Minato. We will..."

* * *

In the sixty years needed to build his own kingdom that rivaled Baraggan's, Naruto had flourished and created a sprawling kingdom that became well known within Hueco Mundo. He had taken over numerous smaller kingdoms, many of which were run by more of Baraggan's former advisers. It was no longer a kingdom, and Naruto was no longer a king. He was an _emperor_, and his domain was one of the greatest empires ever seen in Hueco Mundo, or the human world for that matter.

The cave complex served as his "capital" of sorts, though it had long since became a grand palace, that while wasn't on par with the size of Baraggan's, fulfilled all the basic functions needed while housing the majority of his subjects. He had built the thing out of a different, yet similar structured material than Baraggan's Las Noches, to which he had found a quarry of the stuff across the ocean, in some of the new territory he had conquered.

All remnants of the cave complex once being rock had completely disappeared, as he had destroyed the great plateau once he had the resources. Now only the great palace, a brilliant display of red and white rose out of the ground, facing the sea to potentially ward off future enemies. Like Las Noches, it had a domed roof, but there were many more windows on the palace. Instead of four pillars flanking the cardinal directions of the compass, there was a large tower rising out of the dome. It looked almost phallic, but considering Naruto's lewd nature, this was probably intentional. It was in this phallic structure where Naruto made his throne room, so he could look out across the expanse of Hueco Mundo, almost like he was a higher being than all of them.

Out of the palace at the four cardinal directions, there were significant large chambers jutting out of the main palace, and these served as the chambers of Naruto's four generals, who had loyally served him all these years, even the rebellious Nnoitra.

However, these four Hollows were just about the only beings in Hueco Mundo who served him loyally. Living conditions were not good for the rest of the Hollow in the kingdom, and most of them followed him out of pure fear rather than respect. The things he had done made even a ruthless Hollow cringe. And out of the four generals, Grimmjow and Nnoitra were just as ruthless as Naruto, Ulquiorra didn't care about the meager lives of those he considered "trash", and Harribel was blissfully in the dark about her king's ways.

His boundaries spread all the way back west towards Las Noches, stopping where Baraggan had drawn the line between the two rivaling kingdoms. He even managed to cross the ocean fully, and take some of the new land that lay across it, where an entirely different set of Hollows cut off from the other mainland existed.

Despite all his successes on the front of Hueco Mundo, the kitsune Vasto Lorde was thinking about things, sulking as he did so. The last sixty years of his life, he had spent doing nothing but taking more land, resources, and Hollows so he could stick it to the Soul Society, and more importantly, Konoha.

This was the Reino Animal, a kingdom of nothing but animal-based Hollows. All the humanoid ones he had expelled or even exterminated long, long ago, when he had decided that they weren't of use to him anymore. Not that they were ever of much use in the first place. Dreendo had been a moron to believe that _they _were inherently superior to animal Hollows.

In the highest tower overlooking the vast plain and the sea in front of them, a small Hollow sat on his ornate throne in a relaxed position, tossing a rock into the air and catching it easily.

"Hmm, do I have enough power to challenge Soul Society right now?" he asked himself, there being no guards or anything of the like in his throne room. He didn't need anything like that, especially when he said his plans out loud and didn't want anyone to hear them.

"Konoha would definitely go down right now if I decided to attack them, but I've been so busy these past decades, that I haven't even thought of how I'm going to go beyond just _killing _them. But, who I am kidding saying I have enough power to eliminate Soul Society? Not even..." he turned his gaze to the bookshelf he had behind his throne, the most prominent one sticking out severely.

"_...he_ had enough power to thwart the Soul Society, not before he was stopped by the Sou-Taichou. I definitely need to build more power, and _intelligence. _Intelligence is an important factor as well. If I could just archive the list of current Captains and their abilities, that would make this whole thing so much fucking easier. But, where am I gonna get something like that?" he mused to himself, before lounging down sideways upon his throne.

"Ugh, this is so frustrating. Baraggan's stupid ass has prevented me from moving against anyone else in the past couple years, now that he's _finally_ labeled me as a threat. It won't help me at all if I stagnate in my growth of power, and it looks like I'm no closer to figuring out just how to turn a Hollow into an Arrancar than I was before, even I we did find that orb almost fifty years ago..."

Indeed, one of the Bolas de Evolución laid tightly secure on a pedestal directly to the right of Naruto's throne. However, despite being in the possession of one of the sacred orbs, Reporo's notes on Arrancarisation were very complex, and neither he nor the other top Hollows in the Reino Animal could make sense of it.

"It would be so much easier to figure this out if I had a professional scientist or accomplished researcher within my kingdom. That is, if I didn't hate their very guts considering that they remind me of Konoha with how experiment-happy they are. But, it's tearing me apart how I can't get any closer to the secret of Arrancarisation..." The fox Vasto Lorde hopped off his throne, and began pacing around the room.

"This feeling is just as bad as when I was trapped within... Baraggan's... a... re... na," Naruto trailed off, as something clicked within Naruto's mind at that very moment. Thoughts of Konoha, the arena, and scientists all melded together within his mind to form an idea. A brilliant, yet awful idea had hatched itself within his head, at the thought of all of these things.

A cruel grin a lit underneath his mask, and the taken aback Hollow sat down on his throne, as his eyes widened further as the idea began to hatch itself more and more within his head.

It was..._ perfect_. Absolutely perfect. It would be the best thing for him to do. It would take a long, long time for him to get this together, but it would _all _be worth it in the end to see this plan come into fruition.

He charged some reiatsu into this strange panel he had on the left side of his throne, watching as an image of the interior of his palace appeared in mid-air. Overall, the interior of the palace looked somewhat similar to Baraggan's, with the clear night sky visible overhead. It lacked any visible settlements or features outside the doors to the chambers of the four generals. The majority of his populace lived underground, in colonies or groups in an environment similar to the cave complex the place had been before. The only time normal subjects of his were allowed on the surface was when they were charged with subjugated more Hollows. Most of them ate each other underground, as there were no laws of any kind against the eating of your comrades. Because of this, the palace was always in chaos underground, despite the pristine image of order above the surface.

He talked into the screen, knowing that his voice would be reverberated all throughout the palace, reaching everyone except for Harribel, who he had been keeping in the dark about his more unpleasant side. Hell, he didn't use her much, and she preferred to keep to herself in her own wing of the palace.

"Attention, all my wonderful fuckheads out there. This is your awesome emperor speaking, and I'd like to talk about the direction I'm going to be taking this place from now. Obviously, we need to raise our military power even further, but I'm instilling a little _side-project_ that we're going to pursue. You see, for those of you who don't know, I have a little, teensy-tiny, itty-bitty problem with my old village from when I was a human. Naturally, I want to see it disappear off the face of the Earth!" he snorted, laughing loudly, as many Hollows underground once again questioned their emperor's sanity.

"But, I'm not satisfied with simply taking their lives, oh no no no no no! I want to go for something FAR BEYOND THAT!" he roared dramatically, before he squealed giddily, before panning through the holographic image about the barren surface world. "Well, I guess anywhere will do..." he mused, stroking his mask. "Anyway, I know you all just finished building the palace a few years, but we're going to construct a few more _features_ along the surface. You understand, right? I knew you would!" he laughed, knowing full well that there would be many Hollows who would not be happy with this.

"I'm also opening up a new position of power besides my four military generals and the Hollow council... _which has no power, just filled with whiny idiots who think they make a difference..._" he thought to himself before chuckling in his mind. He only made that council so he could stop listening to all his bitchy subjects. "_Maybe I'll kill them all later..._"

"This will be the Reino Animal's own Institution of Scientific Research, but to form such a thing, I need _scientists_. And someone with greater scientific knowledge to lead the Institute. To stress the importance of this, the leader has the exact same amount of power as one of my generals. So, I order you to go out there and bring me scientists to work for me. Those who do will surely be handsomely rewarded with enough Hollows to cause one to evolve!" he shouted, making sure to give them all an incentive to go out and find someone with scientific knowledge.

"_Did I just say enough Hollows to cause one to evolve? I meant that they will be rewarded with death, but oh well!" _He panned the screen to see some Hollows looking very interested at the prospect of free food, and already a few of them were beginning to shuffle out of their "homes" and out to the surface.

"_Still, this is going to take a very long time. Probably ten years to gather all the necessary scientists, and another thirty to finish all the construction, and there's no telling how long it will take the researchers to finish the projects that I order them to do. I suppose Konoha and the Shinigami are going to live for another day. . ."_ he thought sullenly, the long wait that this project has effectively destroying any semblance of a good mood that he had had before.

"All I have to do is wait..."

* * *

Chapter 27 is done, and with a record update time!

Naruto isn't fucking around in Hueco Mundo anymore, and this is probably the arc that many of you have been waiting a long time for. So, please review this Chapter and tell me what you think.

**Translations and Other Features**

Reino Animal: Animal Kingdom

See you all next time,

**_Alban55_**


	28. Un Nuevo Hokage

**Mars Ultor**: Fratricide **and** Sororicide

**apimpnamedKyuubi**: Eh, I think I'll pass on that.

**rockhard034**: Well, the point of this arc isn't to demonstrate his revenge on Konoha per say, but to show just how low Naruto fell by attacking people that have done nothing to him but be born in the village he hates. And, I'd say Chapter 30 is the key.

**An extreme fan of -me**: Hell, I'd say Baraggan is a better ruler than Naruto, considering Naruto uses much more fear to keep his subjects in line. I wouldn't say they're particularly loyal, but its doubtful. At this point in time, they're just trying to survive under his rule, and I think Hollows would be far too selfish to pull off a successful rebellion.

* * *

Chapter 28: Un Nuevo Hokage

"So. . . Señor Aporro Granz. Tell me why I should allow you to become the head scientist in my kingdom," he said formally to the nervous looking worm-like Adjuchas, while relishing in the intimidation he brought over other Hollows. Even if that blank mask obscured any visible emotions that the Hollow might be displaying, he could just _feel_ the tension in the air.

Maybe it was the fact that it was just the two of them in the throne room, with no guards to save the weaker Hollow should the emperor in front of him decide to attack. He was vaguely aware of the window behind him that he could use to escape, but even then. . .

Naruto's recruitment process had taken the kingdom quite some time, as Hueco Mundo wasn't exactly known for its brilliant scientists. Most of the Hollows he had interviewed had abilities that gave them an advantage in the field of study, but they lacked the raw intelligence that was needed to truly strive. In Szayel's case, he had both, and he was in fact a fairly brilliant researcher in his own right. The only question was: Would it be good enough for the Hollow in front of him?

"W-Well, Naruto-sama. We have gone over the necessary requirements and skills needed to take the position of Head Scientist in the Reino Animal. I dabble mainly in Biology, but I also have the necessary skills in Chemistry and Physics." Szayel said, trying to persuade the fox Vasto Lorde.

Naruto looked contemplative, but he rolled his eyes over to the side lazily.

"And you know exactly what I'm looking for, correct?" he said in a bored tone, turning a half-lidded eye in Szayel's direction.

"Might I add, sir, that even with the required skills, this entire endeavor is going to be very lengthy. What you are asking for is not going to be an easy venture, and with all the necessary construction needed, it's going to take even longer," Szayel said.

"Oh, I'm more than aware of how long and difficult this process is going to be. . ." Naruto replied, his expression now fully focused on the Adjuchas in front of him. "But time is not the issue here. I just need a researcher with a suitable pedigree to do this for me, and so far no one has been able to meet those qualifications. I'm hoping that you'll be able to change that. If you meet my expectations, you have all the time in the world to complete this project. Not to mention, some of the _other_ perks that you'll be receiving. . ."

Szayel knew just what he was talking about. He would be equivalent to one of Naruto's four generals, and would be given free reign over anyone lesser in rank than himself, that of which was everyone in the Reino Animal save for five other Hollows. What that meant was that he could basically do _anything_ he wanted to them, within reason.

"I've made my decision!" Naruto shouted, jolting Szayel from his thoughts. "You may know this already from the other scientists in my kingdom, but there's a very specific test I give to those looking for the position. . ."

Szayel stared at him in confusion.

"You see, it's because of the test's insane difficulty that I have yet to find myself a head scientist who can supervise and perform my orders to their fullest extent. However, if you can pass this test, then I will trust you with anything and everything related to science and technology." the fox explained.

"What do I have to do, Naruto-sama?"

"It's simply, really. Simple, yet challenging. You see, around the time I formed this kingdom, I came into the possession of one of the Bolas de Evolución, which would allow us Hollows to blur the boundaries between Shinigami and Hollow, and effectively become Arrancar. However, the secret to Arrancarisation is not so easily cracked. The procedure is intensely complicated and difficult to understand. So, my task for you is this: Unravel the methods of Arrancarisation and duplicate the effects in your lab. I'll throw in a little advantage; my treat. Unlike past competitors, you have all the time you need to complete this research, as you'll be staying here and working on it in our own personal facilities. See to it that you don't fail my expectations. . ." he finished his sentence in a low undertone, any pretense of amiability completely gone. His visage was now set on a grim, serious look, and Szayel found it hard to look away from the Vasto Lorde.

The researcher bowed deeply, allowing his wings to go limp as he held one of his wiry appendages to his chest. He raised one eye underneath his mask to look at the king, who was getting off his throne and walking towards the right, where the apparent Bola de Evolución was being displayed.

The bookcase behind the well-guarded display was where the emperor was headed for, as he grabbed an apparently ancient tome, and a thick stack of notes almost as long as the book itself.

"This is El Libro de Ciclos, written by the legendary Hollow Reporo, who launched a nearly successful attack on Soul Society. This book contains many secrets that I have taken quite the interest in. But, the only section in this tome you need to worry about is the one on Arrancarisation. . . And that, is where these come in," he held out the stack of notes to Szayel.

"The El Libro de Ciclos does in fact explain how to Arrancarize, but what the other scientists have discovered is that the book only explains Arrancarisation through the context of that ancient kingdom. It was over a thousand years ago, after all. In addition to being incredibly complex to figure out, the Hollow species as a whole has evolved since then, so the methods of Arrancarisation used during the time of the kingdom will no longer work today. . ." Naruto explained.

"Your task is to use these notes and what's inscribed with the book to figure out a reliable method for Arrancarisation that can be replicated. You're pretty lucky; I'm giving you all the time you need, plus you have all the resources left behind by Hollows that took this test before you. I hope you won't let me down after putting so much faith in you. . ." Naruto said with a hint of threatening in his voice that wasn't difficult to pick up on.

Szayel took the stack of notes from his employer, leafing through the pages lightly while trying to get a general gist of what was going on here. His eyes narrowed underneath his mask, noting the many complex mathematical equations that littered the margins.

"The Institution for Research is a big, rectangular building dead ahead after you exit the tower. Honestly, you can't miss it. Talk to one of the scientists there to learn about the rules and procedures for it."

Szayel nodded.

"If you're allow me to take my leave then. . ." he said, bowing lightly to Naruto.

Naruto nodded, and Szayel clutched the leaflet of notes in his hands, determined to get to the root of this problem as soon as possible. He walked out of the throne room, shutting the large door behind him as Naruto stared him down.

* * *

Naruto really had to hand it to Szayel. He did it. The rising scientist managed to produce and replicate a suitable method to harness the full power of the Bola de Evolución. In other words, they had cracked the secret to Arrancarisation. It had taken nearly twenty years, with many tests and experiments needed to reproduce the full extent. Apparently, it was much more complex than even Naruto gave it credit for. Szayel was just lucky he had an infinite amount of time to complete his test, even with all the other candidates for the position taking the same test while he did.

But even still, his plan was far from over. Even with the secret to Arrancarisation unlocked, there were still many things that needed to be accomplished. They needed to take more territory for one thing. Materials and other resources were scarce, and he needed it for the construction and the tools necessary for Szayel to work his "magic".

Even Arrancarisation had to wait. Although it was simple to turn some of his soldiers into Arrancar; it had to be delicate on a personal level. Arrancarisation was a big thing after all, and he wanted to be at the strongest he could possibly be when he Arrancarized.

As much as he hated to admit, he wasn't at the peak of his condition. Although he was a Vasto Lorde, there was still much more room for improvement. To top it all off, he could no longer just gain strength through eating Hollows. At this stage in his development, the only way to get stronger was to do old-fashioned training.

Speaking of Szayel, the new head scientist of the kingdom was currently stationed in his throne room, going over the various procedures necessary for Arrancarisation.

"And so, Arrancarisation will eventually occur when the Hollow in question supplies a specific amount of reiatsu into the Bola. The amount of newtons necessary differs for every individual Hollow, but when equilibrium with the Bola occurs, and the reiatsu output is matched, a reaction will inevitably take place which will result in Arrancarisation."

Naruto grinned.

"Good work, Szayel. Your potential in the scientific field has shown well. I know that you're already appointed as my head scientist, but I think more congratulations are in order," he said politely.

"Think nothing of it, Naruto-sama. I am just happy to be of service to you. I feel that I must also mention that the formula needed to figure out reiatsu equilibrium has been drafted by me personally. If you wish to Arrancarize yourself or one of your subjects, I implore you to visit the Institution first so we may clear any chances of failure," Szayel replied.

Naruto leaned back.

"I understand, Szayel. I believe we can begin Arrancarisation for some of the lesser Hollows in the kingdom, but I can't quite use it on myself yet, unfortunately. That goes for you and the generals, as well. Our full potential has not been fully realized yet, and it would be such a shame to allow that to go to waste. We will hold off on Arrancarisation for the time being. For now, you will focus on your _new_ duties, once we can procure enough resources to undertake the operation," Naruto said, grinning at the thought of his scheme.

"As you wish, Naruto-sama. . ." chuckled Szayel underneath his breath. This new position really was all it was cracked up to be, and with Naruto's plan in the works, there was a treasure trove of knowledge waiting to be uncovered.

"I suggest you get started on_ those_ first. They are the most important part of the plan, and without them I can't achieve what I want. Come to me with the blueprints to them, and maybe then we can start mass-producing them.

Szayel bowed again, making sure it was long and drawn-out, as his career depended entirely on his new king's orders.

* * *

Konoha was the village that controlled the entire continent.

It had all started around one-hundred and fifty years ago, when the greatest Hokage in history, the Rokudaime, found a way to harness the chakra of the great fox Kyuubi for the village's purposes.

With its power at the village's disposal, and the breeding of super shinobi through the use of the chakra, Konoha waged war against the other shinobi nations of the world for its righteous cause of conquering. The glorious Will of Fire would be spread throughout the entire world.

And with the odds heavily in their favor, Konoha succeeded. Once Iwa fell to Konoha, the others fell like dominoes, each one vying for some territory within the former Tsuchi no Kuni, and each one getting into some sort of conflict with Konoha and the Hi no Kuni. One after another, they were crushed and assimilated within the empire.

And, after thirty years of fighting, the continent was theirs. The Five Great Shinobi Nations were no more, and now there was only one country, the Hi no Kuni and its lynchpin Konoha. Everything else was just a simply colony of the Hi no Kuni.

And Konoha benefited gloriously from it. The village was now five times the size it was since before the war, with several advancements in both shinobi theory and technology. The Hokage monument still stood at the forefront of the village, it's last face considered the greatest Hokage in history.

The Kyuubi chakra plan reached perfection one-hundred years before, and even a Genin implanted with the stuff was massively skilled in using the chakra. They were so much stronger that a Genin of today would probably be the equivalent of a high-level Jounin from over a century ago.

The Hokage mansion remained relatively untouched over the years, and today a tall, lean man was leaning over the balcony of his roof, looking over the beloved village that he lead.

Shimura Daisuke was a great-something nephew of the Rokudaime, Danzou. He was about twenty-five years old, with an angular handsome face, and a short head of straight, blond hair. This man, who was skilled in the usage of Bijuu chakra, ruled over the village as the seventeenth Hokage, a title he had long coveted. The day he received it was the second proudest moment of his life, and one that he had fulfilled less than a year ago.

His proudest moment had occurred just the other day.

His newborn daughter had been born less than two weeks ago. To add to the proud father moment, it turned out that she had an exceptionally powerful reaction to the Kyuubi implants injected into her. With any luck, she was a contender for eighteenth Hokage. They just needed to train her right.

Her had named her Konohaji, after the village that he loved so much. He had no doubt that she too would grow to love the village that was in her namesake. He wished that were the case with all his heart, as this village was something that was worth loving.

She looked so much like him, it was uncanny. Bright blue eyes, blonde hair, and two peculiar little whisker marks on each of her cheeks which seemed to signify her close connection with the Kyuubi's chakra.

She was a happy baby, which Daisuke was content with, and he hoped he could keep the girl happy throughout her full life.

* * *

"Naruto-sama! Naruto-sama!" cried one of Naruto's fastest messengers, who had found the king after he had mysteriously disappeared. The search had spread far and wide. With Naruto's grand project almost done, many were beginning to wonder if their king was beginning to get cold feet on the whole ordeal.

Eventually, a group of his soldiers had claimed to have spotted him almost thirty miles inland on the next continent, a place almost completely untouched by desert Hollows such as Naruto. This place was a dense jungle of trees, making it much more difficult for the search party to navigate.

But eventually, their smallest and weakest messenger had found their king standing in a large clearing of sorts. As Naruto turned around to acknowledge his presence, the messenger noticed that the trademark spiral over Naruto's stomach was dimmer than usual. In fact, he looked somewhat drained.

"We've found you, my lord. Where have you been these past few months, Naruto-sama? Ulquiorra-sama has taken to ruling over El Reino Animal in your stead." the messenger asked tentatively, choosing his words carefully.

Naruto grinned.

"What, I'm king, so that means I can take my leave anytime I want. Unless you're makin' complaints about that. You complainin', eh?" asked Naruto wheezily, getting up in the messenger's face.

"N-No, sir. It's just, w-we were worried. . ." the messenger trailed off nervously, the excuse sounded somewhat useless to his ears.

"Worried? Somehow, I doubt that. . ." Naruto's eyes never left the messenger. "Anyway, since the oh so important you must know what I was up to, I'll have you know that I was traveling to perfect my latest combat move. And, from the looks of things. . . it seems I've perfected it. . ." he turned to look behind him, into the strange clearing.

"These past hundred years since we've covered the secret to Arrancarisation have been grueling for us. We've taken lots of territory, and gained the resources necessary. The only thing missing is the completion of Szayel's preparations. But, there was always one thing that bugged me more than anything so far. And now, I've solved it. . ." he chuckled darkly.

". . . I'm ready," he muttered cryptically.

Naruto got up from the base of the tree, and began walking in the opposite direction, back towards camp. But, something was on the messenger's mind.

"Wasn't there some sort of Hollow kingdom right on this spot, Naruto-sama?" he asked.

"Yeah, it actually began right at this clearing. Why don't you go take a look? I'll be heading back, now. . ." he remarked offhandedly, which greatly confused the messenger.

Out of perplexity, the small Hollow walked forward into the clearing, noting that the ground here seemed to be singed. The messenger raised his eyes up to see what was in front of him, and they widened like saucers.

"W-What the h-hell. . ."

Naruto grinned as he walked through the jungle

* * *

Back in his throne room, Naruto pored over the notes that Reporo had left them all, in an internal debate over how he should go about this particular business. His team of scientists had already gotten writing the particular Arrancar formula for him, as well as making sure that the facility was in perfect condition for the arrival of their king.

"I guess I had better get going, then. This has gone on for far too long, and now its time for me to evolve into the perfect being." The emperor hoisted himself from his throne, and walked out of the room. His guards outside bowed as he exited the main building and descended into the reaches below.

The few denizens who lived on the surface seemed to shy away from him in fear, a fact that Naruto took great pride in. Everyone gave him a wide berth as he made his way over to the Institution, and only the guards and sentries seemed to hold their post.

With all the crazy architecture throughout the palace, Naruto's institution for research was by far the plainest and clean-cut building. It was boring old white-washed stone, rectangular in shape and lacking any kind of windows. As he opened the glass door into the dimly lit hallway, the researchers and the guards stationed there gave him a deep bow, already aware of his intended presence.

"N-Naruto-sama, it's such an honor to finally have you here after so much time. Please, Szayel-sama is already waiting for you in the bottom sublevel. Let me escort you there immediately. . ." muttered the nearest researcher, who seemed to be somewhat of a spokesperson for the entire building. He was a thin and gangly bird-like Hollow, and from the way he looked Naruto could tell this was a product of one of Szayel's particularly nasty experiments.

"Lumina! Start the elevator!" he cried, after Naruto had agreed to be escorted. Across the main foyer of the building, there came an opening against the white-washed wall, where a circular ball-like elevator came rushing upwards to transport the emperor and his escort towards the bottom sublevel.

Naruto vaguely watched the other Hollow punch in some kind of numbers, but he was too absorbed with what was going to happen down there. As the elevator began coming and subsequently come to a halt, a new, polite voice rang out as they both exited the elevator.

"Naruto-sama, it is a pleasure to have you here. . ." the voice said, and Naruto was treated to the sight of his head scientist himself, who would be overseeing the procedure.

The worm Hollow was standing over a short balcony, where below there were a few chairs, an operating table, a workbench, and the Bola de Evolución, which was closely safeguarded underneath its display.

"Szayel, I take it you have everything prepared for me, then?" asked Naruto, who was getting restless.

"Oh, yes, Naruto-sama. It was no trouble at all, save for configuring the formula necessary for you. Due to your massive amount of reiatsu, it was decided as such. The equation seems to indicate that you need to apply twenty-eight thousand four-hundred and sixty-six newtons of reiatsu to the Bola at a thirty-seven degree angle. The Bola, which contains the essence of the Shinigami will sync will your reiatsu's Hollow nature and emerge in equilibrium. While you are undergoing the transformation, a team of scientists plus myself will be on stand-by to contain the process of Arrancarisation. So when you are ready, Naruto-sama, I must ask you to take a position on the operating table beside the Bola de Evolución. . ."

Naruto complied, walking down the short set of stairs to take a seat on the operating table. His Bola de Evolución stood merely five feet away from him, and its case was unraveling. Szayel walked over to the main database, pushing a few buttons to configure something.

All of a sudden, a strange tendril of reiatsu shot out of a hole next to Naruto, wrapping itself around his right arm. A similar one was already working its way around his left one.

"Alright, Naruto-sama. Those tendrils of reiatsu are configured to limit your reiatsu output. Once you reach the required amount of reiatsu output into the ball, the tendrils will automatically cease your reiatsu output. Once that happens you must simply keep a hold on the Bola." Szayel shouted this from his position. The Bola's case seemed to moving right towards him.

"When these yellow tendrils turn red, I must ask you to immediately clutch the Bola and pour your reiatsu into it. On the count of three. . . . 3. . . . . . 2. . . . . 1. . . . NOW!" shouted Szayel, as the tendrils turned red.

Naruto didn't need any more instructions. He grabbed the ball forcefully, pouring all of his orange reiatsu into the powerful item, as the Bola itself began to react. The energy swirling inside changed from a cool blue to a fierce orange. Naruto himself seemed to have a mix of both the blue reiatsu and the orange reiatsu.

The tendrils themselves seemed to be strained as Naruto poured reiatsu into the orb. The atmosphere itself seemed to be tingling as the whole facility began to shake violently. The strain was taking its toll on Naruto as well, as he roared and writhed violently yet continued to hold steady with his reiatsu.

Szayel, meanwhile, was typing away like mad on the main database, trying to stabilize everything.

"This shouldn't be right. The backlash is far greater than any other Hollow who has Arrancarized, and even we didn't expect such a large reaction to this. I have to. . . Verona! Stabilize the area! We need to prepare for a total meltdown here!" Szayel barked at the odd looking Arrancar who was standing nearby.

The round Arrancar bounded off in a panic, before Naruto's voice broke through the din.

"No! I've got this!" he roared, the reiatsu output increasing even further. The tendrils around him were starting to look close to breaking. Szayel panicked, looking around before settling back down on his seat.

"Okay, the first part is almost done. Now comes the hard part of the operation. . ." he said, as he punched in a few codes that appeared on the screen. The orb and Naruto seemed to be glowing with almost black reiatsu, and a few seconds later the tendrils kicked in, completely cutting off the flow of reiatsu to the Bola. However, what seemed to be a chain of reiatsu connected the Bola to Naruto's Hollow hole.

Naruto roared as black lines began covering his entire body, and he started to convulse in pure pain. He rose from the table, severing both tendrils like they were nothing, as black reiatsu exploded from his body in a torrent, knocking back everyone in the room.

"Ugh, this is the most violent case we've ever see so far. I need to hurry and contain the blast!" Szayel grunted, forcing himself back onto his chair. The command to activate something appeared on the screen, and Szayel confirmed the process immediately.

Four shafts opened down below where Naruto was, and many metallic panel burst forward from the opening, glowing with a deep silvery reiatsu. The circled around Naruto, wrapping him in a cocoon of metal. The panels contained most of the reiatsu, and for a few minutes the entire room was quiet. The lesser Hollows were completely stunned at the reaction, and Szayel was breathing very heavily.

"It. . . looks. . . . like. . . . we. . . . contained him. . ." he wheezed, laying down at his station. The metal cocoon out on the floor was whirring slightly, apparently struggling to keep the being contained.

There was a bang, and a large indentation appeared in the metal. Szayel looked up surprised, before the entire cocoon of metal was thrust off, severing the panels and throwing them all over the place.

The Bola de Evolución was thrown out, landing safely away from the center of the chaos.

A maelstrom of dust and bright orange reiatsu obscured their emperor from view, but Szayel could make out a very humanoid shape within the center of the maelstrom.

* * *

Chapter done.

Not really much to say about this one. It's short, and mostly just the buildup of the plot and action, with no fights occurring in the Chapter. I'm somewhat satisfied with it, though I wish it could be slightly longer.

Anyway, please review!

Sincerely,

_**Alban55**_


	29. El Plan en Efecto

**nissassa:** No, the child is actually the product of Danzou's line. How can Naruto leave a lineage when, as far as I'm concerned, he was the last Uzumaki and never reproduced before his death.

**kishinokurobi: **At the current state, it's about one-hundred and twenty-five years before the main storyline of Bleach.

**WarFan**: Around 125.

**Evil Naruto ROCKS**: I'm not sure I understand what you mean. All three of them will make an appearance later, but none of them will be a part of Naruto's kingdom. Baraggan's his rival king, and I want to keep Starrk in character (loneliness). As for Nelliel, she will have a very special relationship with Naruto. (And no, it's not a pairing)

**Blizzard**: The Bola de Evolución has a similar, yet weaker power compared to the Hougyoku.

**Sasha Naruto**: 'The fuck are you moaning about.

* * *

Chapter 29: El Plan en Efecto

As the cloud of dust and reiatsu settled, the Hollows in the vicinity managed to find their way to their feet, despite the fact that there was now a heavy blanket of strong reiatsu covering the entire atmosphere, making it difficult for them to breathe. Szayel felt a bead of sweat run down underneath his mask, and took in the full sight.

There was nothing quite like the sight of seeing a Hollow evolve into a greater being, and it was no different for Naruto's evolution, which was magnified to a greater scale. The torrent that had surrounded him was palpable, even as it faded. The silhouette in the middle seemed to be in the process of morphing, as the figure's canine visage become more humanoid. His mask was starting to crack and eventually fell off, save for a few fragments that couldn't be made out in the dim light. His tails disappeared into his backside, his arms and legs became thinner, and he got ever so slightly shorter.

The figure grinned psychotically, showing white teeth. White, human teeth unlike the razor sharp fox canines that littered his mouth before. He released his reiatsu somewhat, finding it was a little difficult to control.

The cloud of dust settled completely, and Szayel feasted his eyes on the new and improved emperor. The newly nude "human" walked up the stairs to the balcony, casually grabbing one of the plain, brown robes meant for new Arrancar. He wobbled slightly, being slightly unused to the human body, but he clenched his feet, and released his reiatsu again, feeling the power well up inside him.

He grinned wickedly, letting out a throaty snicker that soon turned into full-blown laughter. He swung his arms from side to side, his subjects looking slightly uncomfortable at the maniacal laughter.

"Naruto-sama. Are you alright?" Szayel asked tentatively, taking in his king's new appearance. He was around five and a half feet tall, making him quite a short Arrancar. Being garbed in a simple brown robe, he looked the very picture of a common Arrancar, but the confidence and reiatsu he exuded gave off a presence of someone much higher. He left his robe open slightly at the collar, exposing his massive Hollow hole, which curiously had remained over his heart instead of moving to another part of his body.

His face was very boyish, a fact which surprised many of the Hollows down there. He didn't look a day over sixteen, which just went to show that he hadn't aged a day from the time of his death. However, despite the fact that he didn't look older, there were still several differences on his face.

His mask had broken into fragments, a given for a new Arrancar. The mask began with two very short pointed ears directly above his human ones, which rested against his temples. The mask continued to the side, arching around his eyebrows and curling underneath his eyes to a sharp point just below his bottom eyelid. His estigma took on the form of the whisker marks he had in life, yet this time they were blood-red in color and almost looked like they were some type of war paint, which complimented his mask and almost gave him a sort of tribal vibe. His eyes were a deep scarlet red, and they were slanted slightly, giving some more remnants of his vulpine appearance from before. His hair was the same blonde spikes he had as a human. The new being looked so much like a human, but the reality was he was absolutely not a human. He wasn't even a Shinigami.

He was... an Arrancar.

The other Hollows in the room seemed to back away from him slowly, but Szayel had enough courage to approach him immediately. The worm Hollow reached out a tendril and touched Naruto's shoulder, which drew the emperor's attention away from his new body.

"Naruto-sama, I am pleased to announce that the operation was a complete success. You have now been officially Arrancarized underneath the context of El Libro de Ciclos. But that's not all, your Zanpakutou is forming on the operating table below..." the head scientist said.

Naruto hummed lightly.

"A Zanpakutou, eh? One of those swords the damnable Shinigami carry around. Come to think of it, this new body is a little too human-like for my tastes; it reminds me of how much I hate them. But... if it will help me gain more power, then the Arrancarization will definitely be worth it in the end," Naruto mused, walking down the steps, where he saw a sheathed sword materializing into existence on a pedestal next to where he was operated on.

He grabbed the sword once it had finished materializing. He drew the Zanpakutou from its sheathe, scrutinizing the weapon carefully. It didn't seem to be very similar to the katanas that the shinobi used. It was wider, and with the slight curve in the silver bladed edge, Naruto realized that his weapon resembled a cutlass. Naruto mused that maybe the shape had something to do with the twisted and curved nature of his soul, but dismissed that as nothing more than lame symbolism. The blade gleamed in the dark, and Naruto's eyes were drawn towards the base. The hilt and guard of the Zanpakutou lacked the basket shape characteristic of cutlasses. Instead, they were both red in color, with two extensions curving out of the guard and into the hilt like fox tails, coming together to form a rough heart shape.

"Hmm, I think I like it..." Naruto said, fastening the Zanpakutou on his hip, and walking up to join Szayel again.

"The Arrancar Zanpakutou works a little differently than the Shinigami Zanpakutou, Naruto-sama. Whereas the Shinigami Zanpakutou is the manifestation of that Shinigami's soul, the Arrancar Zanpakutou is the nuclei of your Hollow abilities sealed within a sword. When you release said sword, your regain your true form." Szayel explained.

"Good job on this recent assignment. Since the success of the Arrancarization, things have been coming along smoothly, if not a little slow. As for the other part, the part involved with the main plan, I would like you to show me the new bracelets." he said.

"Of course, Naruto-sama. They are completely ready. You have ordered the creation almost one-hundred thousand of those, correct. They are currently being stored in the research vault. However, I could take you down to the main lab, where I can show you the basics of how one works," Szayel said. When Naruto nodded, Szayel ordered Verona to open the elevator. He gestured for his king to enter, which the new Arrancar did after being followed by his head scientist.

"As you have ordered, these bracelets are the pinnacle of how this plan works..." he explained in the elevator shaft, but was cut off as the elevator stopped, and the door flung open.

The Arrancar and the Hollow were now on the first sub-level, the main lab where several Hollow and Arrancar scientists were toiling away at whatever nasty research they were doing. At the center of the room, there was a bracelet on display in a case, which was clearly meant to be fit on a human wrist.

Naruto smiled when he saw the handiwork of his scientists on display.

"It has taken us so long to develop this incredible piece of technology. I won't bore you with technical details, but what it is in a nutshell is a miniaturization of the Shinigami's dangai. It can convert human cells into spirit particles, allowing them to enter Soul Society, or in this case Hueco Mundo, when the bracelet is worn by the human in question."

"Brilliant, Szayel, brilliant..." Naruto commended, his voice now seeming to moan in ecstasy at the mere thought of such power in their control now. "What about the other crucial part of the plan?" he asked.

"That's the more difficult part of this, Naruto-sama. Although, we have perfected the technology needed to send humans into Hueco Mundo, we have not yet managed to stabilize a large enough Garganta to hold an entire village. The most we have achieved is the size of about a house..." said Szayel.

"Well, keep working on it, then. Since everything else is complete, you can devote all of your time to completion of this one final project. Once you complete the stabilization of the Garganta, the operation is a go. Report to me immediately when your research is complete. You are to accompany me to the human world, and when the operation is complete, you are to be delegated to Sublevel 14 of the Institute. Do I make myself clear?" Naruto ordered.

Szayel's eyes widened underneath his mask.

"Naruto-sama... y-you're..." he stuttered. Naruto grinned evilly.

"That's right, Szayel. This is going to be your field day..." he said, to which Szayel leveled a grin just as twisted as his king's.

* * *

"So... they've finally managed to stabilize that Garganta, then?" asked Naruto towards the messenger Szayel had sent. The messenger saluted, confirming the statement.

"Yes, sir. With the combination of the Dangai bracelets as well as the stabilization of the giant Garganta that can carry an entire village, the orders you gave us all those years ago are finally complete. We are prepared to begin the operation at any time you wish, Naruto-sama..."

Naruto smiled cruelly, dismissing the guard before turning back to his throne. He charged the panel on the left side of his throne, allowing the screen which he used to communicate messages throughout the kingdom.

"Attention Ulquiorra, Nnoitra, Grimmjow, and Szayel. Report to the main throne room immediately for a strategic war session. This is mandatory..." he ordered, making sure the message reached the four Hollows in question.

In time, four Arrancar walked into the throne room. In the fifteen years since he had become an Arrancar, all four of his generals and his head scientist had followed. Ulquiorra and Harribel were able to rise to low-level Vasto Lordes before they evolved, but Szayel, Nnoitra, and Grimmjow all failed to achieve the Vasto Lorde status, instead settling to become _very_ high-level Adjuchas Arrancar.

About five minutes later, the first arrival appeared in the form of Naruto's right-hand man himself. Ulquiorra had changed from the stoic bat Hollow to a stoic Arrancar. He was around the same height as Naruto, with almost albino skin, and slick black hair that reached his neck. He wore a brown robe like his king, and his mask fragments were a helmet that was split in half.

Ulquiorra was silent as he entered the room, but it instantly become loud as the second and third arrivals got there. The first of them was a blue-haired Arrancar with a cat-like face, and a line of teeth on his right jaw. The next one was an extremely tall Arrancar with long black hair, a slanted face, and an eye-patch. His signature scythe-like Zanpakutou was missing.

The last arrival came in ten minutes later, an effeminate pink-haired Arrancar with Hollow mask glasses and an almost seductive look on his face. He sauntered in after bowing to Naruto.

"Good, we're all here.." Naruto said, satisfied.

"What about Harribel?" Grimmjow piped up, noticing the lack of the only high-ranked female. Naruto shook his head.

"This entire process is going to be far too grisly for her to handle, so she's going to sit this one out. I can't have her thinking I'm anything less than the perfect messiah, now can I? She's just sitting in her chamber, worrying her pretty little head over something I set her on for the next few months," he said.

"Anyway, she's not important right now. The essential thing right now is that all the preparations for the plan have been completed. The village itself won't be any threat to us, but we need to get in there and get out quickly before a Shinigami Captain shows up..." he said.

"Why? Any one of us could take on a Captain, easily..." said Grimmjow cockily, grinning at the prospect of a new fight.

"Don't underestimate the fighting power of a Captain, Grimmjow. And, it's not too much about a Captain, really. With a force of Hollows this big coming to that continent, we could easily have the whole of Soul Society on us if we're not careful. And, as much as I _hate_ to admit it, we're really not ready to handle them yet..." Naruto seethed, hissing out the last part in anger.

"Understood, what do we need to do, Naruto?" Ulquiorra asked. He didn't seem to be too concerned about any of this, though Naruto supposed that was to be expected.

"Here, follow me to the back of the room and we'll discuss our course of action. . ." he said, leading the four other Hollows up to this large table opposite from his throne. There seemed to be a map pinned down upon it. The logo of the Reino Animal's science institution was printed in the bottom corner.

"This is the updated map of Konoha that the Institution has drafted for me recently. It is a moderately sized village, and a surprisingly small capital for an empire of Konoha's scale. It is my home village from when I was still a human, and a breeding ground for corruption. The village is ruled by a Hokage, the strongest shinobi, not to mention all the ninja they have in the village. However, with the might of our forces, the ninja won't be any trouble. What really worries me is the Shinigami, like I said earlier. We need to be in and out of this village in twenty minutes, tops. That's why I'm pulling out the big guns for this operation..." Naruto said.

He placed a tack on the Hokage mansion, while he placed several more at sixteen different points around the outskirts of the village.

"I'll be the one to capture the Hokage. Ulquiorra, Grimmjow, Nnoitra, the sixteen yellow tacks you see represent the Garganta from where our forces will enter the village. You know what to do from there. Szayel, your role has changed these past few years. Instead of accompanying me personally, I want you to stay here and personally supervise the configuration of the giant Garganta. Make sure you link the main database to a position where you can see us. When we are finished in the village, we will send up a flare to personally notify you to the configurations..." he ordered, to which Szayel understood.

"Sounds simple enough..." he remarked.

"The plan itself is unfailingly simple. It was the technology we needed that took up all this time..." Naruto replied.

"The rest of you get to your positions and rally the forces. Szayel, I expect the shipments of bracelets to the docking zone. We will depart for the Human World in five days..." he ordered to the rest of them. The four responded without question to their orders. When the four went their separate ways to prepare, Naruto sat on his throne, grinning.

"_This will be fun..."  
_

* * *

Fifteen year old Shimura Konohaji was the most talented prodigy that Konohagakure no Sato had ever seen. Her natural talent, coupled with her love of the village and sheer willpower, as well as the superior genetics she had received by being part of the Shimura clan. She had completely mastered the usage of the Kyuubi's chakra, being able to call on all nine tails, blowing her father's previous record of six tails out of the water by far. She had long surpassed him anyway, and would continue to grow into probably the finest Hokage in existence, for she was guaranteed to be next in line.

Right now, she was walking through the clean streets of the village, smiling at the all the happy people who went about their daily lives. Truly, their village, no, their empire was a wonderful place. But, she had other concerns to worry about. She was going to meet her friends at the original Ichiraku Ramen stand, which had long grown into a chain that had spread throughout the empire. She had heard that originally the chain was just that tiny stand who made a modest business over two-hundred years ago during the reign of the Sandaime. That was unbelievable for one thing, but she supposed it was similar to how all the clans had survived throughout the years.

"Hey, Konohaji, you're here!" shouted a loud boisterous voice, as a feral fifteen-year old walked out of the stand she had just arrived at. Inuzuka Nikukyuu looked remarkably like his distant ancestor, down to the voice. Out of all the clans, the Inuzuka's were probably the ones the benefited the most out of the Kyuubi's chakra. Their canine-like speed, nose, and strength were only boosted more.

Konohaji smiled softly, and laughed lightly, a gentle tinkle which made the Inuzuka blush slightly.

"Hey, Nikukyuu. You're looking well," she commented.

"Not as good as you're looking, Konohaji. Fifteen years old and already the strongest in the entire village. I hear your dad might even retire soon, and you might be made Hokage sooner than expected."

"We'll see, dog-breath. We'll see." she laughed again, and walked into the restaurant, where she saw that five of her other friends had already arrived. Aburame Shini, Nara Rei, Hyuuga Haruna, Akimichi Chouma, and Yamanaka Inose. All five of them turned towards her with smiles on their faces, though it was hard to with Shini and his high collar and jacket.

She took a seat at their table next to Rei and waved when the smiling waitress gave her a menu.

"So, how have you all been?" she asked, ordering up a few bowls of miso ramen.

"Could be better. We were gone on a mission to the former Tsuchi no Kuni in order to suppress a rebellion against the Empire. It was a pain to say the least," Rei drawled. The always deadpan expression on her face made her look far plainer than she actually was.

"I wouldn't say that, Rei. You need to be more motivated for missions..." came a suave, silky voice. The handsome Yamanaka Inose threw back his long hair, and locked eyes with his teammate.

"Whatever. Maybe I'll become more motivated when a certain someone takes over as Hokage..." the female Nara said, looking at Konohaji, who blushed after being put on the spot.

"I told you before... I'm..."

"FOOD'S HERE!" shouted Chouma, an Akimichi even bigger than the one's from Naruto's time. Indeed, he had gone and ordered himself at least ten bowls before Konohaji had even arrived, which explained why he had gotten his food so quickly.

Rei sighed.

"Chouma, you just couldn't wait until Konohaji arrived before you got your food, could you?" she asked rhetorically, to which Chouma looked up from his bowl and stared at her intently.

"When you're in a restaurant, waiting is for the weak. No exceptions..." he said shortly, before returned to his bowl, allowing everyone there to contemplate just how that made sense.

The group remained silent, and all that could be heard was the slurping and munching of Chouma's eating. Konohaji enjoyed the peace and quiet a little bit, but she hoped there was more to talk about within their little group. She raised the glass of water to her lips.

"So... does-" she was cut off, as the air around her became unbearably heavy, like she was being suffocated. The glass slipped from her hands, and shattered into a million pieces upon the floor.

She looked up to see that the atmosphere itself seemed to be heavily distorted due to the intense pressure. Her friends seemed to be affected the same way she was, and the other patrons were doing even worse, several of them on their knees panting for breath.

"W-What in the h-hell is this? I've n-never felt anything like it. It's a-almost like it's from out of this w-world..." she panted. Her friends looked at her warily, as if something that could make her afraid is something they would not want to tangle.

Haruki burst into tears, the powerful pressure finally forcing her to her knees. Konohaji attempted to place a reassuring hand upon her shoulder, but she couldn't get it up, and she too collapsed onto the floor, and began choking. The others followed her soon after.

After nearly a minute of choking, Konohaji forced herself to her feet. She darted in the direction of the door, looking back to see her friend's pleading glances.

"K-Konohaji..." Rei croaked out.

"Come on guys, you need to pull yourselves together. We might be under attack!" she screeched at them. It seemed an entirely foreign thought. Who would dare attack the great village of Konoha? It was the lynchpin of the great empire that controlled the entire continent. Attacking it was blasphemy, and every citizen in the empire knew it.

She smiled when her friends pulled themselves to their feet, some struggling more than others.

"Come on, we've got to find my father..." she ordered, to which her friends followed her out of the restaurant and into the village.

The sight that met their eyes was like something they couldn't even comprehend.

* * *

"Ah, the fresh smell of Konoha. There's nothing like it. I don't think I've ever smelled anything that's made me this sick before..." Naruto mused to himself, as he stepped out of the Garganta hovering over the village. The wind rustled through the Arrancar's hair, as he took a deep breath and surveyed the village. He was hanging out in mid-air, watching the sheep as they plodded through the daily lives without a care in the world. They had no idea what was about to happen to them, and the thought of that only made Naruto giddier. Surely, the ability to snuff out life so easily, without them even knowing made him truly sublime.

He heard the distant whirring noise of opening Garganta, seeing the black voids open on the outside perimeters of the village. After they fully opening, thousands of Hollows poured from the portals. Most of them seemed to release their reiatsu, creating a waft of the pressure that surrounded the village, and made the villagers and shinobi alike collapse. He spotted a few Shinigami that were patrolling the village. They had taken notice of the Gargantas, and the Hollows that were pouring out of them. Their mouths were agape, and they seemed to be in too much shock to do anything productive. All the more advantage for him, Naruto supposed.

A slightly larger Garganta opened about one-hundred feet above him, and from it poured this sort of blue reiatsu. It blanketed the village before spreading towards the perimeter where the other Garganta were. It rose in the air, creating a force field of energy around the village.

"Looks like Szayel has started. That force field of reiatsu will make us visible to the humans. Look like everything's going according to plan so far..." Naruto mused. He looked over and spotted the Hokage mansion. It seemed to remain untouched after all these years. The Hokage would be there, most likely, so Naruto would head there while his army dealt with the rest of the village. They had their orders.

Speaking of the village, all of them seemed to have noticed the portals opening, and were staring in perplexity at the voids, until that confusion turned to terror as the first wave of Hollows began to rush in the village.

Naruto stepped into the direction of the Hokage mansion, hoping that the Hokage himself would've taken notice by the time he got there. He opened his robe slightly, showing about ten Dangai bracelets attached to his belt buckle.

"Well, looks like it's about time to get started..."

* * *

Done!

It's another short one to be sure, but with this it seems that things are finally heading underway. I'm quite proud of this Chapter, so please review and tell me what you think.

In other news, my third story is now up! Please check it out if you feel like it.

Sincerely,

**_Alban55_**


	30. La Destrucción de Konoha

**DiLost**: What about him? He'll appear in the story later, but he won't be a part of Naruto's kingdom.

**Blood Brandy**: No, they're all dead. It's been over two-hundred years since Naruto has been alive.

**apimpnamedkyuubi**: Hmm, I guess it's not too late.

**Gaurdian Soul**: I think the next few chapters will answer that Naruto is becoming an irredeemable monster.

Here it is everyone, the first of the three Chapters that will be covering Konoha. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do, but I will admit that it's not going to be for everyone!

* * *

**WARNING!**** Chapters 30, 31, and 32 will have some questionable content in them.  
**

Chapter 30: La Destrucción de Konoha

Panic flooded the village as its citizens laid their eyes upon what could only be creatures from some sort of twisted nightmare. That... _pressure_ they were exuding was unnatural, and there were so _many_ of them. No one seemed to know where they were coming from.

Loathsome creatures, every last one of them. Some were big, some were small, but the fact of the matter is that they all were repulsive. Lewd, warped beings that were covered in these strange masks for which evil, black eyes lay underneath. These eyes seemed to be filled with nothing more than the desire to destroy humans. Some had long, cruel claws meant for nothing more than evisceration, some had long, wiry limbs, and some were completely alien in nature, different from anything the people had ever seen before. These ones were the most disgusting of the bunch, as they often oozed a horrible green liquid from oversized, gangrenous pores while they drooled a filthy acidic liquid, or they had many disproportional limbs in the wrong places.

They poured into the village, letting loose their unnatural cries. Moan, wail, and shriek they did, but what made the villagers' hair stand on end was purely, unnatural roar that the creatures made.

The villagers of Konoha dropped whatever they were holding at the moment, stopped to stare in horror at the _army_ of these foul creatures that began to pour into their beloved village at an almost impossible rate. A few babies wailed in anguish, children screamed in terror, but they were ignored by the shell-shocked citizens.

It was at that point that the citizens of Konoha dissolved into their baser instincts. Many of them screamed and ran, their fight of flight responses working way overdrive on flight, while they searched in any direction to find an escape route out of the village. The shinobi, much more experienced with seeing and dealing with such things, were not panicking, but even they felt themselves strangely fearful of the new beings.

They tried to maintain order within the village, but the Hollows' incredibly sudden appearance had rendered their efforts useless. There were simply too many people panicking to organize an orderly evacuation, and the Hollows were beginning to attack the civilians.

One shinobi winced as a poor old woman was attacked by one of the twisted creatures. It easily hoisted her into the air screaming, purposefully applying enough pressure to make her bones snap. She wailed in torment, as the Hollow continued to stomp on the broken arm until it was a bruised, broken mess that was pointed at an unnatural angle. To add fuel to the fire, The Hollow pulled this strange bracelet out of the nowhere, and attached it to the old woman's broken arm.

The shinobi wondered about the purpose of the bracelet, but they had a feeling it couldn't be anything good.

The only thing to do now was organize a counterattack on the creatures, though without their Hokage's guidance it would disorganized at best. Nevertheless, a few shinobi teams had taken to the forefront, while others attempted to corral the citizens or find safety for themselves.

The Shinigami patrolling the village had known about the invasion long before the shinobi did. It all began when a new Shinigami recruit received a signal from the Soul Society. With a lazy grin, he opened his Spirit Phone to glance at his radar, and was floored when a beam of red stared back at him through the phone. It vibrated for a few seconds before it actually exploded due to overheat, leaving the stunned and confused Shinigami without a beeline on the Hollows. It turns out he didn't have to wait long to find them.

"What... the... hell..." he said as he turned around and saw the massive flood of Hollows pouring through the village gates. His breath caught in his throat at the wave of Hollows, and their brutality towards the hapless citizens of Konoha. Many of them were Menos Grande.

"This can't be possible..." he murmured, fear gripping his heart in its icy grip. His body didn't respond to his mind telling him to run, and he stood rooted to the spot.

"Backup... we need backup. Do we even have enough backup for this?" he asked himself frantically, beginning to suffocate on the reiatsu that was being emitted from the collective Hollow force. There were only fifteen Shinigami in the village at the time, and their communicators may have short-circuited from the reiatsu. He hoped they would be able to call in Soul Society, and get a Captain here, pronto. But, he knew in his heart that just one Captain wouldn't be able to put a stop to all this.

As for right now, he needed to fight. He drew his Zanpakutou and faced the swarm of Hollows, though something was strangely off about them that the Shinigami couldn't understand.

"_This isn't normal Hollow behavior at all..._" he thought to himself. The Hollows should be devouring humans on the spot, but not a single one of them was doing that, surprisingly. Instead, they were carrying these strange bracelets, and were going around the village attaching them to whatever human they could find. Men, women, children, the elderly. It seemed that not a single human was spared from the Hollow's agenda. The bracelets seemed to immediately knock out the humans, rendering them helpless to be taken.

But even when unconscious, the Hollows did not eat them.

"_I have to do something_..." he said, trying to spring into action against the closest Hollows he could find. He was gutted by a wiry limb before he could even reach them, his Zanpakutou falling to his side uselessly.

As the Shinigami died, he saw the shinobi of the village spring into action against the Hollows, despite how little of a chance they actually had. Why they were doing that and not trying to escape, the Shinigami didn't know.

"_Wait... the humans... can they see the Hollows?_" Those were the Shinigami's last thoughts as he died.

* * *

Konohaji gasped as she exited the ramen stand, and feasted her eyes upon the _things_ that were ravaging her village. She gasped a second time as a shinobi team activated their fox cloaks and rushed after a group of about twenty of the creatures, while a Jounin seemed to be rushing towards a wave of the creatures that appeared to be doing _something_ to the civilians.

She didn't know what was more alarming. The fact that her comrades were fighting what appeared to be creatures from a child's nightmare, or that the famed Kyuubi chakra that had been so effective and reliable for them in the past failed to harm the beings.

A million thoughts ran through her mind at that moment, and she was quickly being overwhelmed and would lose the ability to think rationally. Should she just in the fray against these creatures, or should she rescue the helpless civilians? It seemed like the shinobi needed rescuing as well, as she saw a group of ANBU get chained by a swarm of the creatures, their abilities useless against the creatures.

"_Father... I've got to find my father. He'll know what to do here; he'll know how to repel these monsters..._" she thought to herself, hiding in the shadows as one of the creatures passed her by, chasing after an escaping middle-aged man. Fortunately, they didn't seem to be that intelligent.

She almost screamed with fright as she felt a tap on her shoulder, before mentally cursing herself. Did the stress of the situation really make her lose track of the most basic of ninja skills?

She turned to confront the monsters, her Kyuubi chakra rising to the occasion, but it plummeted when she saw that it was her friends who had approached her.

Rei grasped her shoulders lightly, sensing her friend's agitation.

"Konohaji, calm down! Don't lose control of your chakra or your senses. That will only make this situation worse. We're ninja remember, and we have to look underneath the underneath. There is a way out of this situation, no matter how bleak it looks right now. We're the proud village of Konoha remember, and we're all in this together. We're not about to let you run off on your own in this crisis; we need to work as a team..." she explained.

Konohaji bit her lip, before looking at the reassuring smiles that ran through the faces of her friends. They were in this together, Konohaji realized, and they would fight together for their village.

"You're right everyone, we can get through this if we work together. There are certain things we must take care of first, such as finding my father! He'll know what to do!" she said. Her friends nodded in agreement to the sound plan.

"We're behind you all the way, Konohaji..." said Nikukyuu, to which Konohaji smiled softly again.

* * *

Naruto looked out over the village, smiling madly as his army had reduced the bustling village to a cacophony of chaos in a mere two minutes. The Shinigami patrolling the village had already been killed under the onslaught of numbers, and it would be a while before they could get anyone stronger out here. But still, they had limited time to fulfill the requirements, but his army was performing surprisingly well given the circumstances. Ulquiorra and some of the others he had appointed high positions were there to severely punish those who broke the rules and ate.

The bracelets were working wonders in this situation, and he sat back and enjoyed himself as he watched Grimmjow chain a family of five, cackling all the way, as he punched out the father who was foolishly trying to defend his family. The Arrancar sat down on the shingles of a roof, watching his army haphazardly throw unconscious humans into a messy pile near the center of the village.

Several of them were bruised and beaten already, but as long as they were alive it didn't really matter. He laughed as he saw an ANBU squad attempt to drive his army away from the pile so they could rescue the citizens, but they were quickly repelled. He winced mockingly as a young child got trampled by the wave of panicking villagers.

Surely, there would at least be a few ones that died here and there. The kid's head was crushed underneath the boot of a much larger man with a heavy footfall. A few Hollows laughed as some civilians stared in horror, though the large man didn't even pay attention to any of that.

While this operation would be considered a disgusting crime against humanity to nearly everyone, Naruto saw it as the most beautiful thing he had ever witnessed. Seeing every last man, woman, and child in Konoha being chained by his army, where they would later be escorted to Hueco Mundo. He had something so brutal in store for them there that he would hold off his climax until then.

The fact that his armies were brutalizing them right now on his orders were mere peanuts. The kid's death was insignificant, and the screaming and begging of the villagers to stop didn't matter to him. He was controlling his joy right now, trying to mask the fact that he just wanted to jump for joy right about now.

"Well, I guess it's about time for me to get in on this action, too. I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if I let all these opportunities pass me by." Naruto said, rising to his feet as if it was just another day at the store for him. He brushed off his brown robe, before he set his eyes on the Hokage mansion. Perfect, his target was already out and about, surveying the destruction of his village in horror from the balcony in his office. He also seemed to be barking orders to ANBU guards, who activated their Kyuubi state and rushed down towards the village below.

"_You call THAT usage of the Kyuubi's chakra?_ _And here I thought Danzou's research would come up with something a little more fruitful. Though, I guess it was enough to conquer this pathetic continent._" Naruto thought to himself, seeing how the ANBU had only mastered a whopping one-tails worth of power.

"Oh, hello? What's this?" he asked himself, as he witnessed a group of seven teenagers appear in a flash on the roof. They seemed to be searching for the Hokage, but Naruto's attention was drawn on the one at the head of the pack.

"Oh, hell no! What the fuck!" he hissed, seeing the girl's startling resemblance to his old Orioke form. She even had blue eyes, and there were even two cute little whisker marks on her young cheeks. Maybe some of his genetic material had been donated to those with a particularly strong reaction to the chakra, though whether that was the case Naruto didn't know.

"She looks almost exactly like me, and because of that she's probably extra talented with the Kyuubi chakra or some shit like that. Not to mention, those brats behind look almost exactly like my old friends. This is a bad joke, and whoever came up with this stupid idea needs to die..."

He appearance on the shingles of the roof on the floor directly below the balcony, able to catch a glimpse of his targets from that angle. He fidgeted with the bracelets he had around his waist, itching to get in on some of the action. The Hokage had his back facing him, and he seemed to be addressing the seven teenagers. He even adopted a neutral, detached expression, though even Naruto with his lack of empathy could figure out that he was just hiding his true feelings behind a mask of stoicism.

"Dad, what are you doing here? Can't you see the village is under attack? Shouldn't you be giving orders to evacuate the civilians?" Konohaji screamed, to which Naruto scoffed. What did they take him for? That force field did more than just make them visible.

"Konohaji..." Daisuke croaked back. "Why are you here?" He seemed to be in too much shock to anything, possibly from the relief that his precious daughter was still alive.

"Why am I here? I'm here because I'm worried about the village. Konoha can't be destroyed like this, _we _can't die by this, can we?" she asked, the pride in her village resurfacing towards her voice.

"Konohaji... look around you. There's a giant barrier of chakra that's surrounding the village, preventing our civilians' escape. Our ninja are taking the attack to these strange beasts, but even the Kyuubi's chakra isn't doing a thing to them. I'm afraid to say that we may be over our head's on this one..." he sighed, much to the shock of the kids after hearing such cowardly words come from their Hokage.

Konohaji clenched her fists together, and stared at the ground. Her cheeks were tinted red, though it was probably out of anger rather than embarrassment. She was definitely disappointed in her father for saying that.

"_Wow, I never realized the Hokage of Konoha was such a pussy. Oh well, it's just one thing on the laundry list of reasons why I hate this village_..." Naruto mused to himself, not voicing his thoughts out-loud.

"How can you say that? Have you lost so much pride just in the face of danger that you have forgotten everything that Konoha represents? The Will of Fire, have you forgotten about that too? The sense of unity that everyone has within the village! We're responsible for them! I'm not gonna run away and turn my back on them, and I'm not gonna go back on my word! Because, that is my nindo!" she cried, pouring her heart out to the sky. Tears were beginning to settle in her eyes, as she looked once again at the chaos that had descended on the village. It was a grisly scene to be sure, and Konohaki's heart poured out towards those who may have already lost their lives.

"Konohaji..." whispered Nikukyuu.

"_Oh, fuck no..." _Naruto thought. "_That bitch is dead..."_

Daisuke glanced at his daughter with a compassionate look on his face, not as the seventeenth Hokage, not as a member of the Shimura clan, but as a father. A look of regret passed over his face, before he walked up to the crying girl and hugged her tightly.

"Shh, it's okay baby. I know how hard it must be for you to see the village in such a terrible state. You, more than anyone else love this village, and it would tear you apart to see it destroyed. You're right, Konohaji, absolutely right. This is no time to be wallowing in hopelessness, we need to pool our minds together and find a way out of this situation." he said, and the six teenagers around them joined their friend in a group hug.

"But, first..." he said, taking on a much more intense tone of voice as he broke the hug. "Why don't you stop hiding and show yourself?" he said. His daughter wiped her tears, and glared intently over the balcony, having sensed the presence a while ago. He had been waiting for one of the creatures to show up here, but he didn't think that they had the intelligence for subtly. This one could be even more dangerous than the others.

There was a flash of something, and the group of eight's eyes widened as a young man that couldn't be over sixteen appeared right before, the psychotic grin on his face unnerving. His dress was very odd to the group, being garbed in a tattered brown robe that was a little too big for him. There seemed to be a sword strapped on his hip. But, what was really alluring was his face, having this strange, white thing that covered part of his face and the war paint on his cheeks. Honestly, to the group the boy didn't look human.

"Are you gonna show another display of crying again, because that bitch's misery over there was really amusing to me. All that crap about "oh, it's my nindo" and "oh, this village is so awesome" while bawling her eyes out like a baby!" he yelled, performing a crude imitation of Konohaji's voice when the need arose.

The hate that was rising out of the people in front of him almost made him moan, and he lapped it all up.

"Who... are you?" asked the Hokage.

"Me? Oh, I'm just a lil ol' Arrancar who was walking along the beaten path, and it just so happens I stumbled across this backwater little village. So, I think to myself..." he placed his hand underneath his chin in a mock thinking pose. "Hey, I should use my armies to crush this place into the dust. So, here we are now, and if it's any indication, you seem to be getting crushed," he said.

"Armies? You mean _you're_ the one behind all this!" accused Konohaji, her voice shaking in anger.

"Do I have to spell it out for you idiots? Yes, I'm that one that brought these Hollows to these pitiful little village, and I'm not leaving until I see it completely leveled."

There it was again, that beautiful hatred that Naruto loved so much.

"But, of course, I'm not going to be satisfied just by killing you. No, I have something else much worse in mind for this miserable little village, something so bad that you'll all be wailing for death at the end of it." he guffawed.

Konohaji almost darted forward to attack the Arrancar, but she was held back by her father.

"How? How could you be so depraved? You want to torture every person in this village? Even civilians? Even women and children? Are you really that big of a monster?" she said, shaking in her father's grasp.

Naruto shut his eyes and gave her a lazy grin as he blew her off, though the girl's father spoke up next with something that would anger Naruto quite significantly.

"What I want to know is how a child like you manages to control a massive hordes of these things. If anything, I'm calling your bluff out right now..." he said calmly, unconvinced that someone like Naruto could control this massive horde of creatures.

Naruto blinked. He did not just say that.

"Listen, bitch..." he began, insulting the Hokage, to which all the kids around him bristled. "I don't give a fuck what you think about me controlling these Hollows, but that isn't going to save your village, is it? You WILL be enslaved, you WILL be taken back into Hueco Mundo, and you WILL be tortured for my own personal amusement. And, as for you, there's something about you personally that sets my hair on edge. You remind me too much of that damnable old bastard Danzou..." he muttered. Daisukes' eyes widened.

"How do you know that name?" Daisuke shouted. Konohaji's eyes widened along with her friends'. The way he was talking about Danzou made it seem like this kid once _knew_ him. But... that was impossible!

Naruto grinned, and Konohaji felt a rock drop into her stomach. She peered at him carefully, peeling away the bizarre mask and inhuman features. His appearance reminded her of someone...

"He was our ancestor, the greatest Hokage known to the village who provided us with our own Kyuubi chakra..." Daisuke continued, breaking the silence. Konohaji remained quiet, though she appeared to be shaking, but in fear, wonder or anger no one knew.

"Hmm, figures he would cover an incident like that up... Tell me, have you ever wondered where he managed to get that Kyuubi chakra in the first place, hmm?" Naruto asked.

"What are you-" Konohaji started, but a sudden pressure overcame her, taking the words from her mouth and forcing her to her knees. She looked up at the creature in front of her, seeing him coated in an orange layer or an energy that _wasn't _chakra. In the background, she saw a silhouette of what appeared to be a fox head.

"Allow me to introduce myself... Naruto Uzumaki, emperor of the Reino Animal in Hueco Mundo, and original Jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi no Youko. Pleased to make your acquaintance," he said, bowing mockingly to the group.

"O... Original Jinchuuriki?" Konohaji asked, losing her rigid stance as she pondered the exact meaning of those words. "You mean... you're... but, that's impossible. You don't look any older than I do!" she yelled at Naruto. The Arrancar looked at her oddly, before he laughed.

"Ironic, isn't it? I died here over two-hundred years ago, protecting this village while its people provided me with nothing in return. And then, that bastard ancestor of yours had the gall to experiment on my corpse and find the secret of the Kyuubi chakra in order to mass-produce walking shitstains like you. Kinda funny, don't you think?" he said, letting his reiatsu diminish into nothing.

"D... Dead?" Konohaji replied, turning white as a sheet as her phobia kicked in. "So... t-that means y-you're a... a... a," she stammered, as she pointed a trembling finger at Naruto.

Naruto grinned.

"Boo..."

Konohaji screamed.

"Konohaji! Don't let his lies get to you! This kid is not from the Sixth Hokage's time period, nor is he a ghost. This kid obviously has some sort of kekkai genkai, one that's dis-positioned toward Genjutsu. He is merely toying with you!" her father shouted, drawing her from her reverie.

"Oh, do you want to see if I'm really toying with you, _Ho...ka...ge-sama_," Naruto drawled, drawing out every syllable as long as he could. "Or is da widdle boy too scawed he's gonna get huwt..." he mocked using baby talk, making kissy-faces at the group.

That appeared to do it for Shimura Daisuke, as the others stared at him as he began to draw on the legendary Kyuubi's chakra. His nails lengthened into claws, his eyes turned red and slitted, and faint whisker marks appeared on his cheeks. A vicious red chakra surrounded his body in the shape of a fox, forming a cloak of sorts with one tail at the end.

"One-tailed state, huh?" Naruto commented, and the Hokage narrowed his eyes further.

"You made a big mistake in targeting Konoha, _boy_. I've had enough of these conversations with you, and I'm not going to let you fulfill your twisted desires any longer. The Will of Fire burns in all of us in Konoha, and you will never take that away from us. I am the Seventeenth Hokage, and I have inherited the Will of Fire from those that came before me! As long as I'm here, you will never shake the foundation that is Konoha!" he roared.

Naruto yawned before grinning and reaching his hand towards his sword. He grasped the hilt of his Zanpakutou tightly as he charged up his reiatsu. He then he drew the cutlass slowly and held it at arm's length, pointing the bladed edge of the sword at the Hokage. The gleaming cutlass seemed to draw the attention of the seven teenagers, having never seen a weapon quite like it before.

He looked towards the sky, his eyes spacing out as he disregarded all the shinobi in front of him.

"Shall we get this over with? I've been wanting to satiate my blood lust for a very long time, y'know. And, don't worry about anything when you lose, I've got a very special bracelet with your name on it..." he said, taking one of the bracelets off his belt and holding it up.

"_Those are..._" Konohaki thought, looking at the bracelet carefully.

"Dad, those awful bracelets are what the creatures are using to capture the civilians around the village. They seem to have some important purpose, but I can't figure it out..." Konohaji piped up, and her father nodded.

"Stand back, you guys. I can't let you get in on this mess while on my watch..." he said. Konohaji looked like she was about to protest vibrantly, but her friend Rei placed a hand on her shoulder.

"C'mon Konohaji, let's stand back and let Daisuke-sama deal with this. He's our Hokage, after all..." she said reassuringly, which slightly calmed down Konohaji.

"Yeah, there's no way Hokage-sama could ever lose! I bet he'll send this kid packing within seconds. You more than anyone should know just how strong he is!" Nikukyuu piped up. Konohaji smiled at the reassurance, stepping back a safe distance so she wouldn't get caught up in the fight.

"You can do it, daddy. Show him what the village of Konoha is made of!" she cheered from afar.

Souped up on Kyuubi chakra, Daisuke rushed over to the side, going for a more subtle angle where he could attack. This would be a perfect faint attack to catch his opponent off-guard, and then he would go in for the actual kill. He began some handseals for a special Shimura clan jutsu, and...

...He never knew what hit him.

His hands flopped uselessly to his sides, and he didn't even have time to perform a Kawarimi which he could use to avoid the attack. It was just so fast, so fast that Daisuke had never seen anything like it. It was beyond shinobi level speed, to the point where it looked like he had just appeared out of nowhere and attacked him. He wasn't even able to react.

It wasn't like he was an incompetent Hokage or anything. He had mastered all levels of Shimura clan jutsu, to the point of being able to summon the Baku, and he had mastered the usage of the Kyuubi's chakra, which he hadn't used much in his fight. This thing had outclassed him in every way. This thing... was no human.

A heavy gash coated the right side of his chest where the creature had sliced him, and he fell to the ground in a heavy thud. Naruto was standing around five feet away with his back turned to the downed Hokage. He licked the blood off his sword before sheathing it, before turned around and slowly walked towards the Hokage, holding up the bracelet ominously. The last thing Daisuke remembered was his arm being forced into that thing before it activated, and he lost consciousness.

Naruto turned back towards the seven teenagers who were standing around fifty feet away on the other side of the balcony. Their mouths were all agape, and they seemed to be in too much shock to even move. It made sense, the Hokage was pretty much infallible, and to lose them pretty much meant that were fucked. Most of them seemed to realize that at least. The anti-climatic, one-sided battle may not have helped.

And then, Konohaji moved while her friends seemed to be in too much shock to do anything. She screamed in anger and sorrow as she buffeted towards the monster who had attacked her father, six tails of red chakra flowing behind her. She was fully intent on ripping that creature's throat out, making him eat it and then shit it out.

"_I'll kill him... I'll KILL HIM!"_ she screamed in her thoughts, as pure hatred and anger fueled her chakra and willed her body to move towards the Arrancar. She was almost there... hand at the ready. She aimed it towards his jugular, and noticed the smug smile on his face. She would wipe that grin off his face. She would...

_Slash! Thump!_

The fifteen-year old girl slumped to the ground defeated, her Kyuubi cloak armor being no match for the reiatsu-tempered sword that had slashed through her right shoulder. She looked up at Naruto, who was glaring down at her like some fierce god. He released his reiatsu slightly, which shaded his red eyes from view and gave him a more intimidating feel. He reached onto his belt and pulled out another bracelet, and time slowed to a crawl as the girl anticipated her fate.

"M-Monster..." she croaked out, her voice a low, fearful whimper now as tears flowed from her eyes. Mercy was given to her for the time being as she too lost consciousness as the bracelet was attached to her.

Naruto hoisted the unconscious girl to her feet by her right arm, before cruelly tossing her over to where her father lay. The treatment of their friend seemed to shock the others out of their stupor, but before they could even think about becoming enraged they too were slashed to pieces and captured.

He looked at his own pile of the eight people he had captured, before looking out across the balcony. It seemed that his forces were finishing up, rounding up a few stragglers that had managed to escape them for a surprising amount of time.

There came a flash from someone behind him, but he immediately recognized the reiatsu. He hoped that this individual had now fully completed the tasks he had given him.

"Hmm, Ulquiorra, I take it you've done your fair share of the work here?" he asked.

"Yes, Naruto. I have personally taken to capturing quite a few of the humans. But, that's not what's important right now. My forces have finished rounding up every human in the Northern Sector of Konoha, and both Grimmjow and Nnoitra will be finished with theirs in less than five minutes." he reported.

"That's good. We're making almost perfect time, so I guess I can send the signal to Szayel at this moment..." he explained, before his finger began to glow a bright red. He pointed the reiatsu glowing finger towards the sky, before firing a burst of the energy which crackled in mid-air before exploding into a brilliant display of red and orange.

"There, Szayel should easily be able to see that flare on his monitor. Setting up the mass Garganta shouldn't take him very long at all, since they've already had this prepared before the invasion. Are all the Shinigami dead?" he asked.

"Yes, they stood no chance for this massive amount of Hollows that flooded the village. There were fifteen of them patrolling the village, five of which were seated officers within their division. Their bodies have all been accounted for."

"Good, but Soul Society has probably picked up these signals by now. It won't be long before they react accordingly, and at this rate it may be half of their forces. That is why I've decided to leave the rest of the continent alone. We simply don't have the time to go and crush all these villages, and with the power vacuum created by Konoha's sudden absence, they'll probably destroy themselves within a few years anyway." The Elemental Countries weren't exactly known for their peace-loving qualities. Even Konoha, who had preached a message akin to that for its early years was always a little trigger-happy.

"I understand, Naruto. I will order my forces to cease their attacks," said Ulquiorra before there was a loud, whirring noise that covered the entire village. The blue force field that surrounded the village distorted slightly, before flickering back into existence. Naruto grinned.

"Well, that was even quicker than I expected!" he said happily, as a rift in the space began to open. The rift widened to almost a five mile radius, large enough to engulf the entire village in its embrace. Naruto saw the black space start to close around him, the Hollows, and all the humans who had been converted into Konpaku form by the bracelets.

"Looks like you won't need to order them to do anything, Ulquiorra. We're on our way back already, and we've got company in tow with us. I just hope this influx of humans will keep Hueco Mundo stable..."

"I'm sure we don't have to worry about that, Naruto-sama..." said Ulquiorra, reverting back to the honorific as he, Naruto, and every lifeform in the entire village was engulfed by the Garganta.

When the rift in space closed and the Garganta disappeared, all that was left was a ramshackle, burning village. The once great village, and capital of the shinobi world was now a simple ghost town, a shadow of its former self. No one resided within those walls, and for the next few days the people of the Elemental Countries were baffled at the sudden disappearance of the most powerful ninja state that had ever existed.

* * *

Done! This was a fun one to write, but of course it would be.

Anyway, I'm been waiting to write this Chapter for a long time, and I'm sure many of you have been waiting to read it for a long time, so please tell me what you think on the subject.

I'll see you all next time, where we learn just what will happen to the citizens of Konoha.

Peace,

_**Alban55**_


	31. Monstruo Completo

**kenegi**: Naruto has **numbers**. Honestly, there was probably around a ten-to-one ratio of Hollows to shinobi, and the fact that there are plenty of trained Adjuchas in his army, it's no surprise that Konoha was fucked.

**Absimilard**: In short, no. What will happen to them will be worse than simply being eaten, but you're right in that you won't have to deal with Konohaji anymore after this.

**rockhard034**: Ah, I remember that. That Shinigami scene was there to only do the exact opposite of what Shinigami Naruto planned to do, and it was there to actually motivate him to become more evil instead of being redeemed. Naruto basically squashed those feelings by being even more evil than he was.

**Impstar**: Oh, don't worry. I definitely will.

**Ppsh**: See, the concept of Soul Society is why Naruto is patient with this plan. Naruto's next target is the Soul Society, and by his reasoning since most of the people will go there, and he wants to destroy it anyway, then he will indirectly get his revenge on the original villagers.

**UnorthodoxParadox**: I've made the Garganta work similarly to the Dangai that Ichigo and friends used to teleport to Soul Society. The bracelets convert the villagers to konpaku form, which is needed to cross the Dangai.

Here's Chapter 31, folks. Chapter 30 was a doozy, and this one will be even more of a doozy.

Many thanks for 1000 reviews!

* * *

**WARNING! Chapters 30, 31, and 32 have some questionable content.****  
**

Chapter 31: Monstruo Completo

The first indication that Konohaji wasn't dreaming was when she woke up on the cold, unforgiving tiled floor in an unknown location. It was nowhere near the warm, cozy bed in the Hokage mansion where she was used to sleeping, and the fact of the matter was she was strewn rather roughly across the floor, as if the person who brought her here had no idea how to treat a lady.

The second thing that hit her was the fact that whatever had happened in Konoha _wasn't _a dream. The village had been attacked, that boy had kidnapped every one of them, and most importantly, their village had fallen. That boy... no, not boy. Whatever that thing was, he had succeeded. Succeeded in the most horrible way possible, that was.

"_So... all those atrocities... they really happened,_" she thought glumly to herself. "_Our village... it's gone,_" she dwelt on her destroyed village a little more, before she returned to the most prominent issue at hand. She would worry about the village later, as long as the people were alive, then that was all that mattered.

She seemed to be first one to be roused from her unconsciousness, as every villager in Konoha was still in deep slumber, currently unaware of the horrors that were about to befall them. All of them seemed to be held in this enormous storage room of sorts, their bodies haphazardly thrown all over the place without a care in the world. She was placed relatively close to a tiny door near the south side of the room, which seemed to be their only escape option, the walls and floors of the room seemingly made out of thick metal that would impossible to bust through.

She turned the thick, metal handle on the door, thoroughly anticipating that it would be sealed shut. Sighing, she attempted to channel her chakra, but what she got instead was this strange energy that she couldn't seem to control.

"What? This isn't chakra..." she said out-loud to herself, noticing that different feel that the energy had. For starters, it wasn't blue or red, instead being an earthy brown color. It also didn't have the same consistency of chakra, appearing far more gaseous. She could barely control it either, almost like it actually didn't belong to her. At least, that was the way that it felt.

She lifted her arm lightly, taking note of the bracelet that seemed to be bonded on her wrist. She tried to use her new... whatever it was to increase her strength and pry off the bracelet, but there was no way that happened. She also didn't seem to be able to use any jutsu as well. Well, if that was the case, then there really was no way they could escape this place without any chakra.

A few of the shinobi and the tougher villagers seemed to be coming to right about now, and they shook their heads in confusion at where they were. Fortunately, only a few of them had a panic attack, and those that did worked themselves towards exhaustion banging their fists on the wall. However, the majority of them either remained calm or realized the hopelessness of that action.

They seemed to break off into groups, going to sit with their friends who had woken, and it was then Konohaji realized that all of her friends were still slumbering peacefully, so she was all alone for the time being. No, that wasn't true, she had her comrades in the village, but they were simply cattle for the creatures that had taken them at the moment. When they came back, she didn't know, but it would be soon. She could feel it.

More and more people were beginning to awaken, but she was cut from her musings when there came a rustling of the tumblers, and the thick metal door opposite her creaked open slowly, much too slowly for her to be comfortable.

"Hello, my pathetic little villagers. Are you ready for the worst day of your life?" came a loud, obnoxious voice, the same one that had tormented her during the invasion of the village. Now angry, she turned her raging face towards the familiar blonde-haired visage, his smug smirk and vicious attitude leaving a bitter taste in her mouth. She couldn't use her chakra now, but she'd be damned if she didn't make this monster pay for his crimes.

Against her better judgement, she screamed violently and pounced at Naruto, who was flanked by five humanoid beings much like him. They were different than most of the creatures that invaded the village, but one couldn't exactly call their appearance human.

She screamed herself hoarse with a primal shriek, ready to wipe the grin off Naruto's face. The humanoid beings around Naruto tensed and prepared to attack, but Naruto held them in place. Before she could even react, Naruto casually pulled his right hand out of his pocket and backhanded her cleanly across the cheek, knocking out two of her teeth and sending her flying back several feet. The abused girl lay there pathetically, coughing up her molars and a thick globule of crimson blood. The villagers seemed to be roused by the display of rebellion, but they didn't dare attack the leader.

Konohaji choked on her own blood, coughing it up lightly as it poured from her throat. That was no ordinary slap, there was something behind it that made it more powerful.

She couldn't take it; tears poured from her eyes. He was simply humiliating her, slapping her around and not even giving her the time of day. She heard him laugh, that infernal cackle that she was convinced was pure evil. It haunted her, and she hugged herself tightly after getting to her feet. The monster laughed again, and she shivered as she registered what was going on.

"HA! Don't you worry, you filthy little whore! You'll get your time to shine soon enough! But, right now, it's time for your village's debut, and we don't want to be late!" He turned around and called into the hall. It was a haunting shriek that set the villagers on edge, but they wouldn't have to worry about that for long.

"Everyone! Escort the villagers to the bottom sub-level of the Institution. If they resist you in any way, you have permission to knock them out. Szayel and the others are waiting for you with the guinea pigs, so get going..." he ordered, as a few hundred Hollows swarmed into the room and began plucking villagers, both conscious and unconscious onto their backs.

"And... as for you," he trailed off, thundering over to where Konohaji lay. He hoisted her up by the wrist, holding her at arm's length as he stared into her eyes intently.

"You've pissed me off more than enough. You'll have a very special purpose in this little event, one that's a great honor..." he drawled, before he noticed the tears running down the girl's face. "Oh, you're crying. How pathetic, don't you have any willpower?"

Konohaji's lip trembled from the internal torment she was going through. What the fuck did _he_ know?

"H-How..." she sniffled. "H-How can you be so depraved. Me... the village... Konoha... What did we ever do to you? To any of you... Why are you doing this?" she croaked, her voice hoarse and her throat bleeding. The blood dribbled down her chin and hit the floor in front of her, but no one paid it any mind.

Naruto seemed to contemplate this for a moment, before he focused his chin towards his face with his free hand. He sneered at her, showing a row of serrated teeth. Konohaji tried to look away, but his hand was forcing her to look at him.

"Oh, you want to know _why_ I'm doing this, hmm? Okay, I'll tell you..." he trailed off for a moment before he came up with an answer. He moved his face toward hers, smirking lazily through half-lidded eyes.

"I could go off on some dramatic sob story of my life and how Konoha hated me... but I'm not going to. Honestly, no matter how much I hate you and your village, the reasons behind this seem rather petty after two centuries. But still, I can't help but loathe you. I long for the day when I see your village dead, but that reason... it doesn't matter. All that matters is that I get my way. Your lives don't hold any importance to me. I will get my way no matter what, and you know why, it's because I have _power_. You can say all you want about morality and how you don't deserve this treatment, but... I don't care. I have the power to make each and every one of your lives' miserable... and that's exactly what I'm going to do. I can do whatever I want without any consequences... and you," he paused, tightening his grip on Konohaji's wrist.

Her bones snapped underneath the pressure in a sickening crunch. Konohaji cried out in pain as Naruto prolonged the process, squeezing even after her wrist had broken. He leaned in, placing his lips upon her ear like he was kissing it softly.

"_And you... you can't do anything about that_..." he whispered, her mouth as close as it could be to her ear. As his rancid breath and words entered her ear canal, Konohaji failed to suppress a shiver than ran down her spine.

"But, that's enough about that for now. We're going to be late for the show at this rate. Come with me, and I'll show you your _seat..._" he hissed, as he forcibly dragged the girl out of the room by the hair as the last of the villagers were corralled away.

* * *

"W-What... i-is... t-this... p-place..." Konohaji croaked out through her hoarse throat, the bloody chafing of it leaving her voice sounding gravelly and distorted.

After ten agonizing minutes of being dragged around by the hair, Naruto had deposited her roughly into a strangely comfortable chair on a balcony overlooking an extraordinarily wide room on the bottom sub-level of the Institution.

It was a strange room, to be honest. On the bottom level of the room, below where she was currently sitting, a manner of scientific equipment rested. There were all sort of gauges, test tubes, monitors. . . . . . . operating tables. . . . . . . . . . . drills. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . sharp tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . chemicals. . . . . . .

. . . And villagers.

In a panic, Konohaji turned her attention to the swathing mass of Hollows the depositing villagers all over the room. Some "lucky" ones were placed on the operating tables, but the leftovers were simply placed on the floor. However, Konohaji had the horrible urge that they would not be neglected.

Konohaji flung herself to her feet, but as soon as she did so, shackles burst forth from the chair, pinning her arms, legs, and torso to it. With her movements prevented, Naruto loomed over the defenseless girl, grinning wildly, before he placed his hands on her shoulders and whispered into her ear.

"You are a very special case, and for that I'm going to leave you out of the... _experimentation. _Instead, you get to watch as the villagers and friends are warped into creatures beyond your imagination..." he hissed cruelly, drawing more tears from the girl. He sat on the chair to the left of her, which was significantly more ornate that hers.

Several dozen lab-coated Hollow and Arrancar came bursting through the door, lead by Naruto's head scientist, Szayel. They lined up in two single file lines, their stoic coordination out of place with the eager look on Szayel's face. They sauntered into the room, relieving the non-scientist Hollows of their duties while they scrutinized their latest subjects... the villagers of Konoha. There seemed to be about five villagers to every one scientist, and it was more than enough considering the scientist's competency.

Szayel looked at his king expectantly, waiting patiently for the okay. Naruto nodded excitedly, the toothy grin no longer containable on his face. He hopped to his feet, holding his arms out in front of him as he let loose an awful cackle of mirth. Konohaji stared. He leaned over the railing, like he just couldn't this display holding off any longer. He had waited so long for this moment, and it was finally going to be fulfilled.

"Let the games begin!" he roared, as the scientists below began their work...

.

.

It was a horrible sight.

The scientists pulled some sort of mechanism from their coats, and from what Konohaji could see at this distance, they were tinkering with a few dials and buttons on the thing.

Within a few seconds of the action, one of the villagers for each individual scientist sprung to their feet, instantly awake and fully conscious. Before they could even panic, they were grabbed roughly by the scientists and hoisted onto an operating table, while being strapped down at every angle. There was absolutely no way that they could move now.

Konohaji tried desperately to move, to free herself from her confines as she focused in on an ordinary man, a civilian from the looks of it, who was being strapped down to the operating table nearest to them.

Naruto reached out and grabbed her wrist, halting her movements.

"Shh! Don't spoil the fun; this is the best part!" he said giddily, as if a prime show was about to begin. Despite having been slapped, Konohaji continued to writhe in her seat.

She shut her eyes, trying to avert her gaze as the horrible actions took place. However, the moment she did so, she felt a nasty electric shock surge through her spine, forcing her eyes open. Another shackle emerged from the chair, holding her neck in place out towards the scene. Two smaller limbs emerged from the chair after that and rested on her eyelids, pulling them open and forcing them in place.

Naruto sneered at her, that diabolical laughter that never failed to make her upset. He truly was forcing her to view this entire scene, and was going to make her as miserable as possible throughout the entire ordeal.

"Now, now, we can't be having that, now can we? I told you that you're going to watch every second of this, and I'm going to make sure I keep my word on that. You are not allowed to shut your eyes or look away..."

This was degrading.

"Besides, it could be worse, so count yourself lucky. I chose you for this because you're special, and I want to see the look of hopelessness and misery on your face. You could've ended up like one of _them," _ he drawled, pointing down towards the floor.

She heard a whirring sound, and in her despair she noticed one of the drills on the ceiling revving up while crackling in this mustard-yellow energy. It oozed off the tip of the drill, landing directly on the shoulder of the man. She turned away as she heard his screaming, and she didn't want to know what was happening down there.

The scientist released the drill from the man with a sickening squelch, retracting it back into its original position. It was now caked in blood, which gave the drill a red and yellow sheen in addition to the energy. When Konohaji turned her eyes back towards him, her eyes widened in horror as the man's chest cavity now had bright red cones of flesh connecting the hole together.

Konohaji didn't know how or why he was still alive, but he was, and the cones of flesh seemed to be pulsating, burning the tissue around it into a charred black. It definitely didn't look right on his body.

At this point, the scientist took a large scalpel and some heavy duty scissors, and began to work, making careless incisions, slashes, and cuts all over the man's body. He jammed the scalpel into the man's left lung, making him wheeze and vomit up blood.

The man looked ready to die, but the scientist wasn't done just yet. The scientist lifted up a flask of this eerily clear glowing liquid, which Naruto recognized as the concentrated essence of reiryoku extracted from one of his Hollow soldiers.

"W-What's he doing now?" Konohaji managed to whimper, as if the drill wasn't enough.

"Don't you know? That flask he's holding is concentrated essence of Hollow reiryoku. It has some rather... _unpleasant_ effects on the bodily structure of normal souls..." he said darkly. Konohaji shuddered.

The scientist had already started, forcibly opening up the man's mouth and triggering the gag reflex, forcing the liquid down his throat.

The substance seemed to have some sort of corrosive property, as the man screamed as if his innards were being scalded by a powerful acid, and it was almost like they were.

He screamed some more, and to add insult to injury the scientist was testing him with all kinds of dangerous chemicals and tools as the Konoha civilian underwent a kind of transformation.

It was at that point that the man began thrashing on the table, to the point where the scientist had to hold him down. His body was beginning to change, and Konohaji didn't like the looks of it. It wasn't going to be anything natural.

His scream morphed into an inhuman gurgle, one that made Konohaji's ears hurt and send her mind into a torrent of fear. Yet, she couldn't even take her eyes off of him due to the constraints.

His skin was the main thing that changed, but unlike what Konohaji had expected, it seemed that he wasn't changing to become a Hollow at all. Rather, it was something alien and different than even these things.

The scientist kicked the new creature out of his way, done with him and Konohaji had a strange urge to help the man. But, the scientist had another victim to torment, and Konohaji's focus was torn from the former man.

"Wonderful, isn't it? After this is done, they'll all be twisted works of nature..." Naruto laughed beside her, but Konohaji didn't even notice. She was busy taking in the entire display. After taking her focus off him, she realized just how horrible this _entire scene_ was.

While she had her focus on just one of the civilians of Konoha, there were dozens if not hundreds of operations going on, each one more horrific than the last in her mind. They all involved drills and sharp tools, and when the villagers weren't being wounded seemingly for the sake of it, they were being horribly experimented on and morphed into these strange creatures. It was like they were guinea pigs or prototypes for something. The scientists simply didn't care if the results were unexpected or if they died in the process.

The sounds of screaming coming from mouths other than the man's assaulted her ears for the first time, as she futilely tried to take in the full scene of what was going on here. Try as she might, she couldn't fully comprehend it. It was far too much for her.

For over an entire day, she continued to view these monstrosities warp and torment the villagers, doing whatever it took to make sure they were in as much pain as possible. She witnessed several of her friends undergo the process, but it was something else that managed to completely break her spirit...

After she panned her eyes past a bloody chain of five limbless humanoids, she came across a sight that struck her the most horrifically. She knew that posture from anywhere, despite the fact that his former body was no longer with us.

More tears welled up in her eyes, and she bit her lip to prevent herself from screaming, but to no avail. She would've raised a trembling hand to point at him, but she was currently bound.

"_No..."_

Shimura Daisuke, the seventeenth Hokage, had been turned into one of these vile creatures by this monster. As the Hokage, he remained silent the whole time, despite being awake for the whole procedure. Only his eyes, which shown nothing but pure emotional pain betrayed his true emotions. And, only when the procedure finally finished after what seemed like forever, was he unrecognizable from the handsome man that he was before.

A lot of scales, skin, and muscles have been carved away, revealing several of his bones to the world to behold.

"Noooo!" Konohaji shrieked, tears pouring down her face. The warped villagers of Konoha turned to look at her for a split-second, before they went back to wallowing in their misery.

She turned to Naruto, who had gotten up from his seat to stand up, leaning over the railing as he drunk in all their misery, moaning as their miserable wails and cries filled his ears.

"Ohhhhh, yeah! That stuff's the best," he breathed, before he set his eyes on the newest abomination... Konohaji's father.

"Look at that new one, he really is quite the ugly one, isn't he? I wonder, what did he go through to make him look like that?" he mocked to himself, before looking back at Daisuke.

"But, listen to the way he just lays there. He's not even giving me anything to work with, no screams or anything. It's really quite pathetic, a fallen dog really should bark a little bit more..." he said to her.

Konohaji balked at the display of mind-screwery that was going on display here. She wasn't even angry at the Arrancar anymore, rather; she was now just disturbed beyond belief.

"H-How... c-could... y-you..." she mewled, barely loud enough for Naruto to hear, though it was enough indication to him that her spirit had broken. She no longer had the power to resist.

Naruto contemplated that sentence for a second.

"Hmm, this again? I told you before, I have no regard for the well-being of you or anyone else in your village. I just want to see you in misery, and that involves you as well. I'll tell you, you were a lot like me when I was your age..." he trailed off dreamily, as if he were remembering better times.

.

.

"... and it sickened me. That's why I wanted to crush your spirit, little by little... personally. Until there was absolutely nothing left, no will or hope to live. And, by the looks of your father over there... it seems I've achieved that goal," he cackled.

Konohaji didn't understand how anyone could have that big of a grudge. She wanted to say something, to scream at him in anger, but she couldn't even muster up any words.

"In fact, I've had just about enough of tormenting you, so I think it's time to bring this to an end. So, say goodbye to your shitty life, you fucking cunt..." he sneered, roughly grabbing and tearing clean through the shackles. He pushed her forward into the rail, the impact causing her forehead to begin bleeding. He then kicked her straight across the ass, sending her flying cleaning into the bottom sub-level in front of them.

She landed with a thud, grunting as she came to a halt in front of a few writhing villagers. She gasped at the first close contact that she had with any of them, seeing how repulsive they were close up. She held her arms up in front of her head, whimpering lightly as a human covered in sores and puncture wounds walked up to her, in too much pain to think clearly.

"No! Get away..." she screamed. These things... they weren't the villagers that she had loved any longer. No... _he_ had made sure they weren't human anymore.

Her father noticed her as well, and he pathetically tried to scramble over to her. It seemed that the villagers still recognized themselves, which somehow made the situation even more disconcerting to Konohaji.

"_Daddy, you don't have to push yourself to get __to me_..." she thought to herself, as she saw her warped father suffer more just to get over to her. He likely couldn't speak anymore, and Konohaji felt a slight shame when she realized she didn't want him near her.

She heard the laugh again, the despicable laugh that she just couldn't take, the laugh that made her fall into despair. Why was he tormenting them like this? She never got an answer to that question, and she didn't know what he had planned for them next.

What she did know was that every single villager and shinobi had been turned into some kind of monstrosity by the scientists. But... they were still alive. There could be a way to undo this yet. However, with the one who ordered this overseeing them, there would be no chance to find out.

Amidst all the moaning and groaning of the former villagers, Naruto spoke.

"You probably can't even comprehend speech at this point, but I'm going to give this a go anyway. I hope you're adjusting well to your new forms, my little humans, because things are about to get even worse for you. You have thirty minutes to mull over your pathetic lives down there, before my guards there will escort you to the _arena..._" he said darkly, and Konohaji shuddered.

"_Arena..._ _what is he talking about..._"

To tell the truth, all this talk about the arena wasn't what Konohaji was particularly worried about. It was the fact that he just said that things were going to be even worse for them. How that was possible, Konohaji didn't know. But, she wasn't particularly eager to find out.

"I'll see you all there, and I'm looking forward to a _great_ show. Starring you, of course..." Naruto drawled, pointing down directly at her. He breathed heavily, allowing the heavy scent of chemicals, blood, and pus waft over his nostrils. This smell had made Konohaji gag during the entire process, and yet he was loving it.

He sighed wistfully, his demeanor significantly improved since the invasion of Konoha. He took his leave on the flight of stairs directly behind the chairs where they both had sat, and Konohaji was left alone with her warped villagers.

* * *

Chapter done!

But, hold your horses. Our Konohan saga isn't quite over folks. We still have one more Chapter before it draws to a close, so I hope you're looking forward to how this ends.

Later,

**_Alban55_**


	32. Mal

**SpeeDemon**: The Bleach timeline gets a little iffy for me, but I'd say we're getting pretty close to the Vaizard incident.

**Impstar: **I doubt it, I think he considers Ulquiorra a valuable right hand man, but there's no way Naruto would hesitate to kill him should Ulquiorra betray him.

**Peter Kim**: Go reread Chapter 5.

Now, the last chapter was met with mixed reactions, which admittedly I was very much expecting. For those of you who thought it was a good addition to the story, this is another chapter like that. And, for those of you who didn't, don't worry your pretty little heads over anything; the story becomes much more plot focused after this chapter.

* * *

**WARNING! Chapters 30, 31, and 32 will have some questionable content.****  
**

Chapter 32: Mal

There was only one thing as great and terrible within the Reino Animal to rival the Institution of Science that Naruto had installed. And, that thing was the combat Arena within the Reino Animal. While the arena has been modeled after Baraggan's own in style and architecture, the building itself served a much different purpose. For, the Arena had in fact never been used to host a sporting event ever before.

To the denizens of the palace, the Arena stood as a looming figurehead, and many of them wondered why it was even there. While it stood deserted, several Hollows maintained the job of keeping it up and running, and trespassing on the property was an offense punishable by death.

So, when it was advertised that the Arena would be hosting its first ever show to a classified audience of Hollows, it set the Hollows of the kingdom on edge. They didn't understand why Naruto was being so secretive about it, and they just prayed that wouldn't have to ever go near that place. Because if they did, they would probably be participating in some horrific event.

But, the denizens of the kingdom looked away as the scientists of the Institution escorted these unusual beings to the arena. They didn't seem to care too much, and they probably just assumed they were just some poor Hollows that Naruto had gotten his hooks into. If they stayed out of this, they would be fine.

Naruto himself seemed to be leading the charge of Hollows that were flooding out of the building, their captives moaning and wallowing in their misery as they were guided. Some of them weren't even aware of what was going on, their minds having been completely destroyed by the experiments.

They had already reached the area where they were supposed to go, the great gate that lead into Naruto's own personal arena. Inspired by Baraggan's design, it was every bit as nasty as the rival king's, and was going to be used for a far different purpose.

While the guards were busy leading the former citizens of Konoha, Naruto had already ascended the stone staircase into the main body of the arena, eager to take his seat in the largest chair of the front row. Of course, spectating during this event wasn't all he was going to do.

He looked over the stadium with an odd sense of satisfaction. He really had to hand it to Baraggan on this one, the guy really knew how to construct a suitable arena. The design was perfect; the amount of space needed to conduct an event, perfect. There were forty-four identical doors at different points in the arena, holding primed soldiers ready to battle. A modification that Naruto added otherwise was the opening floor, where the abominations would go should they survive the trials he had in store for them.

And, here they were coming now. With a certain number of difficulties, the excited guards led the entire village of Konoha into the center of the arena, before leaving to join their king in the stands, for they were the spectators for this grand event. The gates closed with a clang, trapping the desperate villagers within its confines, and allowing no entrance or exit from the stadium otherwise.

Naruto grinned in trepidation, and as the guards filed into their personal seats, they too were eager for the carnage to begin. While some of them were disappointed they wouldn't be able to participate in the bloodshed, they didn't dare question Naruto. The emperor was lucky, he could of course jump in the ring should he become dissatisfied with watching, and most of them knew that he probably would.

"I would address all of you in this situation, but it seems my words won't carry to the pathetic souls wallowing in their misery. So, I'm talking to the little cunt who I left alone during the experiments, and you know who you are..." Naruto spoke up, his powerful voice carrying to the ears of Konohaji. She turned her eyes away from the villagers to stare up at Naruto.

"I would try and stay alive as long as possible in there. If you are, say, one of the unlucky ones that doesn't make it out alive, then you'll miss the big surprise at the end of the show. Of course, with _your_ skills, that shouldn't be much of a problem, should it?" he mocked. Konohaji stared up at him blankly, her spirit too broken to respond in anything more than a feeble tone.

"You... just think this is some kind of _game_," she croaked in disbelief. Naruto grinned at her.

"_Yes..._" he responded simply, before he clapped his hands together loudly. The gates that surrounded the villagers opened simultaneously, in a visible replica of when he was trapped in an arena. Except this time, the roles were completely reversed, and he wouldn't be the one that was fighting for his life. He stared up a control box high up on the arena's balcony, and noticed a shadow moving behinds the scenes there. Clearly, it had heard his clap.

He clapped again, and the traps were set in place. Across the sprawling area of the battlefield, there were spiked pits that would open at random all over the place, a few boiling pits of lava and vats of acid. There were spinning blades that would eviscerate anything that touched them, and small pitfalls that carried them to god knows where. As well as a multitude of other traps and horrors. And the twisted villagers of Konoha were about to experience it in full, as if they haven't suffered enough in their miserable lives.

From out of the cages came a multitude of Hollow and Arrancars, either captured war prisoners forced to fight, or soldiers in his army that were primed and raring to get a shot at the former humans.

The humans themselves seemed to notice that they were danger, and a brave young woman made for the gate, before she was cleaved through by an Arrancar.

"Listen, if you, any of you I should say, can survive an hour in here without getting mutilated by my forces, then I'll let you out of here. To top it all off, I'll even reverse the process on all of your precious villagers, and let you go about your lives in the human world..." he said, lying through his teeth.

"R-Really?" she asked, not really believing what she was hearing.

"Of course! I'm a Hollow of my word, after all. I never go back on it; it's my nindo after all..." he said, much to the shock of Konohaji. That voice that he had said it in, it sounded so sincere, so right... so... HER. This was exactly the type of attitude that she herself would take on. Never going back on her word, it being her nindo.

"_Cut it out, Konohaji! You can't trust him at all! You saw those... things that he ordered his scientists to do to the villagers. He doesn't give a rat's ass about us; he's having us butchered! We can't trust anything he says!" _she reprimanded herself. Whatever the case, it looked like she didn't have any other option rather than relying on his word. They would have to survive for an hour, whether this guy butchered her and the others or not.

"It seems you do take after me quite a bit. I haven't broken your will completely, after all. You're ready to fight to the death to gain your freedom, and the freedom of those you care about. I _like it_. I'll enjoy crushing that pretty little spirit of yours again..." Naruto said.

"_I can't even fight right now..._ _It looks like I'll have to avoid and evade if I want to make it out of here alive..._"

The guards were looking for Naruto's approval so they could begin the match. He raised his hand gaudily, before swinging it downwards, signaling the beginning of the massacre that they had long awaited to start.

The bloodshed was everywhere.

The Hollows and Arrancar tore into the abominations with claws and swords. Konohaji wanted to vomit at the scene, but she was forced to hold her lunch in when a sword almost sheared off her entire head. She just barely managed to duck under it, avoiding the Arrancar who was wielding the blade by running clumsily over to the other side of the arena. Since the floor was almost half a mile long, she was getting winded very fast.

"Wait..." she scanned the area, other than a Hollow or two taking the time to attack her, most of them were focused with tormented someone else. That meant that they weren't paying any attention to her. She noticed the gates where the Hollows had poured out of, seeing that they had a severe lack of activity within them.

"That's it!"

Naruto saw the girl enter the open gate, hiding from her tormenters. He whistled slightly, acknowledging the girl's tactic. That would up her chances of surviving, if he wasn't going to go down there and flush her out.

"Pretty clever, I must admit. These Hollows and Arrancar are too absorbed in their battle to notice a straggler like her. But, unfortunately for her, I want her to live through this," Naruto thought out loud, before he swung himself over the barricade and into the arena.

"Well, it looks like it's about time for little Naruto to participate in this event. I can't let them hog all the fun..."

And so, the emperor darted throughout the battlefield, slicing at any Konoha villager with his Zanpakutou, pushing them into traps, and making sure they were completely miserable. Of course, he did want a fair number of them to survive for the finale. It had already been eighteen minutes since the beginning, and he could hardly wait for it to be unveiled.

Naruto mused about maybe flushing the girl out of her hiding spot for shits and giggles, but decided against it in the long run. It would be best to leave her for the very end, when her world would come crashing down on her even more than it already had.

A misshapen green human was thrown at his feet by one of his guards.

Anyway, he really needed to stop taking an observer's position on this, since he was basically free to take all their lives, and there were only forty minutes in which he could have all the fun he wanted with them. He drew his Zanpakutou silently, holding the gleaming cutlass in front of her before smiling in its reflection. Now, the game could officially begin.

A large conglomeration of villagers were forced into the center by his soldiers, and they seemed to be at the end of their rope. They would suffice as the perfect first targets for his blade.

He used sonido to phase right in front of the group, catching the ones that could think rationally off guard. He approached the first one, an old man with purple skin, and shoved his blade into the man's torso. The man moaned in pain, and the others could only look upon him sadly, as they were powerless to stop Naruto.

Konohaji had poked her head outside of the cage, seeing that Naruto had taken action against a small group of mutated villagers. What was she doing hiding while all of her comrades out there were being slaughtered? She had to do something.

Before she could move on, a figure collided with her, knocking her back farther into the cage. She winced, it was a figure about her size, but she couldn't even tell that it was a human. Because its form resembled something like a mud monster, but what really drew her attention away from the drooling, moaning mass was the _eyes_. They were a pupiless lavender. Coupled with the fact that this thing's build was similar to her, a nauseous feeling arose in her gut.

"_Haruna-chan_..." she thought, almost vomiting at the sight of one of her friends twisted into this monstrosity. She hadn't even recognized the Hyuuga at first, but as she took a closer look, the resemblance became more apparent to her.

At this point, all feelings of survival disappeared from the girl, as she thought about what she was doing hiding away from her enemies. The sheer crime against humanity that she saw before her willed her body to move, to combat the great threat that had terrorized them all. She wanted to fight back, she just... didn't know how she would be able to.

Konohaji saw Naruto throw yet another villager into a spiked pit, and that, along with the fact that he was approaching her position, was what prompted her out of her hiding space. She couldn't stand it anymore, the killing that he did with such callousness. She would be a ninja one last time, and crush this monster.

One of her arms was unusable from when Naruto had crushed her wrist earlier, she had lost her sandals and had gotten her feet all scuffed up, but she still trudged on out of her hiding spot, ready to fight to the death for her village. Speaking of Naruto, he had noticed her come out of the hiding spot, and he looked disturbingly eager about being ready to rough her up. Her breathing quickening as he walked slowly up to her, knowing she was near powerless. And out of nowhere, he... sheathed his sword.

Was he mocking her? Konohaji realized that wasn't true when she figured he was more than a match for her even barehanded.

That bizarre sword that she had seen him carry before was no longer out, and now Naruto was left with his bare hands to fight her. Which, given the circumstances and how she couldn't use any chakra, it would probably be more than enough to beat her. Still, regardless of the power difference, she rushed the Arrancar, her good arm outstretched and prepared to let loose the strongest punch she had ever thrown in her life. It was really meant as a feint attack, but she especially surprised when Naruto just stood there and took it, smiling all the while.

To put it bluntly, it felt like she punched a steel wall. She cried out in pain as her now mangled hand fell limply on its side, all of her fingers now broken from the pressure. Naruto meanwhile, didn't have a scratch on him, his powerful Hierro more than able to take the feeble blow.

Konohaji wasn't done yet though, and she tried to contort herself in preparation for a powerful ax kick to the face, one that would assuredly cave in a skull were she still a ninja. Naruto caught it deftly, and clutched the leg tightly. He could've crushed it to a bloody pulp at that moment, but he didn't.

Instead, he used the awkward position she was in to throw her forward and allow her to land in a pathetic position in the dirt. He stared down at her violently, watching her cough up a little blood from previously obtained injuries. Beside the two of them, the sounds of a bloody massacre could be heart.

"You know. I thought for a second that this display had allowed you to gain some semblance of a will, but it seems I was wrong. That display of power right there was fucking pitiful, and you know it too. Hmm, maybe you need some more motivation..." Naruto mused. He set his eyes on a fleeing villager, whom he plucked up and held his arms around his neck in a choking embrace. The creature coughed in alarm.

"Maybe if I kill another one of your precious villagers right in front of you, it will be enough to stir you into action!" he shouted with glee, as Konohaji focused in on the person he had captured. It was another one of her morphed friends.

It didn't take her long to figure out that the Arrancar was holding Nikukyuu hostage, the characteristic markings of the Inuzuka clan being noticeable even on his warped frame. Konohaji supposed that Naruto would never let her have even a single shred of happiness within this place.

"K... Ko... Konohaji..." the morphed Nikukyuu managed to speak painfully. Naruto looked at him in slight surprised, before he let loose a mocking laugh at the boy's misfortune.

"Oh, would ya look at that? He can still talk! I guess that means he's one of the lucky ones!"

Konohaji ignored his taunt, instead locking eyes with her friend. She could see just how hard it was for him to not kill himself right then and there. The pain was just too much, but Konohaji almost doubted that he actually _had _ability to kill himself.

"R-Run..." he managed to gasp out. Konohaji felt fresh tears pour anew.

"But..." Naruto said cryptically, squeezing tighter and tighter. He readied his free hand in preparation for a devastating punch, and he swung it towards the side of Nikukyuu's head.

"STOP IT!" shrieked Konohaji in desperation, rushing towards the Arrancar as fast as she could muster in her weakened state. She was too late. Naruto's fist impacted against the side of the Inuzuka's head, and it exploded in a fountain of blood. He didn't even know what had hit him.

Konohaji's fear turned to anger as she realized what had just happened, and she rushed the Arrancar, thoroughly prepared to rip his head off. Her motivation stopped as she became splattered with red fluid.

Naruto groaned in disappointment as she ran out of steam, turning his back to her as her lost interest in the situation. He was splattered with Nikukyuu's blood as well, but he didn't look the least bit perturbed by it. Of course he wouldn't.

"It gets a little gory, and all of a sudden you lose the motivation to kill me. Fucking pathetic..." he said, before he flashed away in search of a new target. Konohaji didn't even register the words or his departure; she was too busy crying and looking at the brain that covered her body.

"N-Nikukyuu... N-No," She sobbed again.

Meanwhile, Naruto had noticed that his hour of playtime had been cut to a mere twenty minutes, so he decided he was going to make the best of it. He never drew his sword again, preferring to eviscerate the villagers with his bare hands.

His soldiers had really outdone themselves this time. They worked with a brutality that Naruto didn't think from possible from them, even if they were Hollows. They killed with a captivating ruthlessness, their movements and techniques beautiful to look at as they wrought havoc upon the hapless villagers.

"That's probably why this display is so beautiful to me... The fact that the villagers are powerless to stop it," he said out-loud, his voice slightly husky. He had to admit, the soldiers he had handpicked for this event were almost as violent and ruthless as himself, so they had no qualms about any of this. They would follow him to the death, and weren't they the reason those fools instigated their little rebellion in the underground. That was one of the reasons the rebellions failed; he had soldiers like these itching for violence. Coupled with the fact that Naruto killed mass quantities of his own Hollows; even those who were slightly suspected were put to death.

Seventeen minutes left, he supposed the preparations would begin at about the ten minute mark. The traps would go away then, and the number of deaths would lessen until the finale. That meant he had about seven minutes before the killing would be toned down significantly.

Seven minutes, he ripped an eleven year old in two, the former genin leaking blood from both ends. Six minutes, twelve more villagers had fallen at his hand, and he was getting increasingly more brutal.

He spotted another Genin. He believed a scientist named Tribulu had been responsible for creating the Genin set. He would have to remind him to be more creative in the future. Still, the design of the Genins seemed to be ingenious. Unfortunately, the scientist appeared to be a one-hit wonder, and produced nothing else of interest during the entire experiment. And yet, this gave a perfect opportunity that he could make use of without any traps.

Five minutes remained. Two more minutes had passed, and Naruto stood idle as he simply watched his soldiers kill the villagers in increasingly creative ways, as well as throwing them into the traps.

Two minutes remained until the ten minute mark, and some of the lesser used traps were beginning to disappear into the depths of the earth. The spinning blades in particular were no longer being used. There weren't that many ways one could creatively kill someone with those, after all. The acid and lava pits were far more to his liking than a simple blade. Blades could be boring at times.

"Well, I'd better clear out and go find the cunt. If nothing broke her before, then this definitely will," he said, not even stopping to wonder why he had such a vendetta against Konohaji.

It hit the ten-minute mark of the show, and more traps had started disappearing. A sound of mechanical whirring could be heard, and the vats of lava and acid started disappearing, a system of gears underneath the ground closing the doors over them.

Konohaji was still shuddering from the blood all over here, but at least she had gotten to her feet. That was, until Naruto nonchalantly walked up to her and punched her across the face. With two of her teeth knocked out, the girl was knocked backwards several feet, collapsing into the dirt and thankfully not into any one of the various traps that were still scattered along the playing field.

Naruto hoisted her up by the roots of her hair, as more traps disappeared. There were now seven minutes until the event was over, and preparations for the finale were well underway. Meanwhile, Naruto's soldiers were still disemboweling villagers, staining the dirt with their blood and internal organs. At least, the ones who had both of those things.

At the five minute mark, there came a heavy rumbling that reverberated throughout the entire arena. Naruto, while still holding Konohaji by the hair, looked up at the balcony of the arena, where the control box was. One of the soldiers was stationed there, and he seemed to be starting. The finale was going to begin a little bit ahead of schedule.

Three minutes left. The soldiers were beginning to take the cue when the rumbling got louder and more dangerous. They dashed out of the floor of the arena, getting back to the safe bleachers in the spectator section of the arena. Two minutes left, and the only Hollow remaining on the floor was Naruto. The villagers of Konoha didn't seem to understand just what was going on.

One minute left, and the floor began to open.

Like a mechanical door opening to a top-secret facility, the floor opened slowly, and it wasn't until a few seconds in that one could see the confines of within. It was an enormous underground chamber, almost as long as the arena's diameter, while extending underground a few hundred feet. It was buffered with sturdy metal walls like that smaller chamber where the villagers had been kept before, as well as a metal floor.

In a short span of an hour, nearly a third of the villagers had been brutally cut down by Naruto's army, leaving thousands of dead corpses all over the arena, while some of them had been destroyed completely. And, as the floor opened beneath them, the bodies of the dead villagers and those who were too slow to move away fell through the gaping hole in the ground. A few died on impact to the hard metal floor, but most of them just crippled themselves.

The event was now officially over, and every villager, both living and alive had been consumed by the hole in front of them. All, except for one, who was being held by Naruto himself at the very edge of the arena.

He put his lips up to her ear, and then, he asked her a simple question.

"Do you know what a fate worse than death feels like?" he whispered softly in the ear that his mouth was almost on. And when it was all said and done, he pushed her roughly into the pit.

She screamed as she fell the distance between her and the floor. She used her ninja skills to grasp on the metal wall, but without chakra all she could do was slow her descent. After a few seconds, she landed painfully amongst her fellow warped villagers, many of whom were now in even worse pain from the fall.

"A fate worse than death. That's what this is, when you're down here you will_ pray _for the sweet release of death... and you will never get it. That's what makes this outcome so much more satisfying than simply destroying you. Now that I took out all my anger on you by fighting, I no longer have a need for any of you. My personal bloodlust has been satisfied, and the only thing I want now is for you... all of you... to live in constant, and never-ending pain. You will live down here, you and your pathetic villagers, in constant pain, forever..." he hissed loudly, making sure Konohaji could hear him.

Amazingly, Konohaji managed to get her broken and mangled body to move, and she shouted in her hoarse voice up to the Arrancar.

"And, what's stopping me from simply killing myself? I don't have anything to live for anymore!" She smirked, thinking that Naruto had screwed up in his pain, thinking that she had won. She was disturbed when Naruto began laughing at her.

"Kill yourself? You can't fool me, my darling cunt! I know you're not that selfish. Take a look around you, at the twisted abominations that you could once call villagers..." Naruto said, and Konohaji seemed to catch on to what he was saying.

"You could kill yourself now, but _they _can't. Half of them have some kind of body structure that prevents them dying with the amount of power you could produce, and the others are too focused on the sheer pain that they've completely lost their minds. They can't even think about killing themselves. You're telling me you're simply going to leave behind your villagers to suffer in agony for all eternity, when there could be a cure to be had?"

"But, t-they'll a-age... It won't be eternity..." Konohaji said desperately, searching for an answer. _Anything_ would suffice at this point. To her horror, Naruto laughed again. She turned away from him, tears in her eyes.

"With the fact that you are in Konpaku form, you will age much slower if not at all. Of course, that includes you as well. Let's face it, you'd rather take your chances and endure the wait for a cure rather than leave your precious villagers behind..." he said.

Konohaji couldn't take it anymore, she broke down crying yet again as the moans of the villagers filled her ears. They were in _so_ much pain that she couldn't stand it. _They _couldn't stand it, and the worst part about it was that they would never get out. But, she had to keep herself hopeful of the day they would be rescued, and the day a cure for all this madness was found. He was right, she couldn't leave the villagers she loved behind, and in a way, she already knew that she was playing right into his hand.

"It's a shame, really, but oh well, that's the way things turn out I suppose." he mused, as the door began to close. When it sealed completely, her fate would be sealed as well.

Konohaji looked one last time at the night sky, for it was likely the last time she would see it. As she looked upon the Hueco Mundo moon, her troubles disappeared for a split-second, until they returned in full force when the shrieks and moans of the villagers overrided her senses, and Naruto's body blocked out the moon. It was getting darker, and she was still in so much pain. _They_ were still in so much pain. And Naruto uttered one last sentence to her. She bit her lip, drawing blood.

"I hope you have a happy life down there with your villagers..." he cackled sarcastically. Konohaji leveled one last glare at him, before the darkness got thicker and thicker, and his face disappeared beyond the metal.

The door shut.

* * *

End of Chapter.

In hindsight, Chapter 31 probably warranted more of a warning at the beginning, due to the sheer shock value that the chapter had. Still, I'll leave up the warning on this one for my more sensitive viewers.

One more thing, I have a new poll up for those who enjoy my other stories. It's basically the same as last time, asking which story you would like me to publish next, so if want to vote it's on my profile.

Well, I'll see you next time,

_**Alban55**_


	33. El Mal Desconocido

Okay, we're finally done with the senseless brutality, so all the people who didn't like it will most likely enjoy this chapter a little bit more. We're done expanding on the Hollow world, now it's time to get on with the real nitty, gritty stuff.

* * *

Chapter 33: El Mal Desconocido

The solid metal doors shut completely, and the villagers of Konoha, as well as the girl Konohaji had disappeared underneath the ground, never to be seen again as far as Naruto was concerned. His dream and his plan had been fulfilled, and he was totally satisfied. There was no reason to have their ugly mugs sticking around his business anymore, and from now on he could focus on bigger, better things.

The soldiers in the stadium were waiting for his orders, but he didn't really care right now. They could excuse themselves if they felt like it, and didn't need his permission for every single damn thing.

There was one more thing he needed to do before getting on with his life. He leisurely walked up the staircase to the control box, as the soldier who operated it exited the room. After casually obliterating the Arrancar, Naruto walked inside. Along the walls were several mechanisms that were used to operate the traps, and a large level near the left side which controlled the door that opened to the underground. He smirked lightly, before he charged up a Cero in the palm of his hand. He released the beam of energy, which collided with the lever.

A small explosion of light and metal, and now all that was left was a charred and broken lever, which completely cut off all the access the Konohan villagers had to the outside world. They were trapped, with no way for anyone on the outside to release the lever.

Of course, now Naruto had bigger fish to fry. While he had gotten his symbolic revenge against the village that he so loathed, there was still a much bigger target than he needed to take down. The Soul Society. That was where all the original villagers and his original friends were now. He would have to destroy them.

And, as much as hated to admit it, he wasn't prepared to fight them yet. He lacked the resources, the manpower, and the information to successfully wage a full-scale assault on Soul Society. The majority of the power lay within the hands of the thirteen Captains, and he knew nothing about their abilities other than that they were absurdly skilled in battle. He needed information on them, but there was no way to get any. The thought was frustrating, to say the least.

If only there were some kind of archive about Soul Society within Hueco Mundo, but Naruto had never heard anything about that.

He would have to get his hooks into the place first, and he also needed to consult the Libro de Ciclos again.

* * *

"Emergency! Emergency!"

A lone Shinigami shoved a Fourth Division member out of the way as he rushed down the hallway. The symbol of Urahara Kisuke's Twelfth Division was underneath his robes, displayed proudly for the world to behold. There was a stack of papers nestled underneath his arms, and he stopped to panic as a few of them wormed their way out from underneath him.

"Taichou!"

He gathered them up hurriedly, before he hustled up to the sliding door that led to his Captain's quarters. Knowing the Captain, he was probably busy at work on some crazy little invention that would work surprisingly well in the end.

The Shinigami thought back to what he saw over the monitors. That _massive_ wave of Hollows descending on that one village that got special treatment. Obviously, the Shinigami stationed there were annihilated in an instant by the wave of red. And, before anyone could react, the humans had disappeared. But, it wasn't like the normal Hollow attack where they simply got eaten. No, this time the humans disappeared off the face of the Earth, and their village was left in shambles. This was an anomaly; it had never happened before, and Hollows weren't known to do anything besides eat humans. This time there was intelligent planning behind it, considering that the Shinigami were taken out first.

A dirty-blonde haired man dressed in the Captain's haori of the Twelfth Division yawned as the door was open, before clumsily rising to his feet. He stretched his arms above his head, and the Shinigami noticed the unpleasant smell of noxious fumes waft out of the room.

"Hmm, what?" he said simply, his lax demeanor at odds with the reputation of a Captain, as well as at odds with the subordinate directly in front of him. When you've seen as much as him, you learn not to care about so-called "emergencies".

The unseated Shinigami held the stack of papers up in front of his Captain, which would give him the full report on what had happened. Urahara stared at it while looking unimpressed, he was hoping for some sort of breakthrough on the latest invention.

"We need to give these to the Ninth Division right away, Urahara-taichou! This... this is unheard of!" he clamored. Urahara took the stack of papers from the Shinigami, leafing through what appeared to be the data on the destruction of Konoha. His eyes widened.

"Over one-hundred thousand Hollows congregated on a spot less than a spirit mile. I'm surprised the place didn't implode on itself due to their presence alone. Then again, the village of Konoha has always attracted this kind of trouble from Hollows. It's been that way ever since the Elemental Countries were discovered..." he commented.

"But, that's not the most surprising part of this data. According to the report, readings indicate the entire village was destroyed in no time at all, and the citizens weren't subjected to the regular Hollow treatment. They weren't added to the Hollow's power; they just disappeared off of our radar," he said.

"Yes, sir, that is the most perplexing part of it. Hollows can't possibly be this coordinated, nor intelligent enough to carry out anything other than eating," the other Shinigami said. Urahara looked at him blankly.

"I think you're underestimating the potential of Hollows. They can be crafty, and it's not unheard of for them to band together to form entire governments. But, that's not the issue, here. What I'm really concerned about is the way Namikaze-fukutaichou and those that come from Konoha will react to this..." Urahara sighed, before looking at a few photos of the ruined village. The results were devastating, even if there were no corpses to be found. This entire thing would definitely cause an outcry around Seireitei. The Hollows were getting more organized, and more bold.

The former shinobi of Konoha made up a good chunk of the Shinigami force, and those who were a part of it still had tremendous pride in the village that they once called home. Particularly, those who made it to the higher seats had the most pride in it. The latest development would no doubt crush them.

"This could be a problem... The security we had over in Konohagakure no Sato clearly wasn't enough to protect the village. Over 5% of all Shinigami come from that village; they have a natural tendency to have more reiatsu and be all around better fighters. With the destruction of the village, the rate is going to go down, and we're still undermanned regardless." Urahara gave the report back after he had studied it.

"You can forget the report to the Ninth Division; this goes far beyond a profiling of a Hollow. I'll have to request a Captain's meeting, and discuss things there. We'll have to decide what we're going to do. If organized Hollows can wipe out an entire village with maximum security and a warrior populace, there's no telling what they could attack next."

"Yes, sir!" saluted the unseated Shinigami.

Urahara sighed, as he receded back into his quarters. They would definitely have to step up their game some more if they wanted to compete with the Hollows. Just going out there and slashing with a Zanpakutou wouldn't cut it anymore. They needed better tracking systems; they needed to be able to see this type of thing in action and nip it in the bud. A small explosion took place as Urahara tinkered with his latest invention again, and the Captain was covered in soot. Although he had been a Captain for merely three years, he had the respect of almost everyone in Soul Society as a genius inventor. But, some of his inventions were harder to create than others.

Urahara looked over to his main desk, at the top of the shelf. On the top, within a glass case was a black orb of sorts. It was opaque, and didn't shine with any kind of ethereal energy, signifying that it was nowhere near completion. Absolutely no one knew about this yet, not even his most trusted followers, and if push came to shove he just may have to get rid of the damn thing. It could easily become too powerful to use for any kind of good.

* * *

"W-WHAT!"

Shinji winced as he relayed the information he had heard to his Vice-Captain, Namikaze Minato. It was times like this where Shinji could just quit and leave the 5th Division to his Vice-Captain, Minato Namikaze, or his 3rd Seat, Aizen Sousuke. Honestly, Minato already knew Bankai, so he was a prime contender for the spot. Sousuke had a lot of potential, and was probably Minato's equal if he didn't know Bankai. However, Shinji thought the 3rd Seat was going to learn it any day now. That partially worried him.

Honestly, he would've reacted the same way if he were told that his hometown had been destroyed. Hell, Konoha wasn't even his hometown, and even he reacted in disbelief over it. Though, that was more due to the circumstances at play than any sort of attachment to the village that his Vice-Captain once called home.

"Hirako-taichou... please. Say that again. I want to make sure I heard you correctly," Minato said, his voice eerily calm. Anyone could tell the tension that was behind it, though. The Fifth Division Captain sighed, denial.

"I'm sorry, Minato, but that's the way the Captain's meeting went. According to the Twelfth Division, there is no doubt that the village of Konohagakure no Sato has been destroyed by an unknown Hollow attack force. Even with the personal guard at that location, there was no way that they could've survived against a wave of over one hundred thousand Hollow. It's better that you don't see the report..." Shinji added that last part as a mere whisper.

Minato stared, his mouth opening and closing like some kind of fish. He tried to talk to his Captain, but there was no sound coming out, and his mind was in complete shock. He was too dazed to do anything but stare.

"The wreckage was devastating, but Kisuke said that this wasn't a normal Hollow attack. Rather than eating them, they simply disappeared from the face of the Earth. I'll tell you my theory on it: they were swept up into Hueco Mundo."

After Minato heard that, he found his voice.

"S-So they're still alive! That means that we could-" Shinji cut him off on the spot.

"Hold your horses there, Minato. _Yes_, they might be still alive, but we have know no idea how to get to Hueco Mundo, and we don't know whether they're there in the first place. It's worrisome if that were the case, because that means that the Hollows figured out some way to get humans to Hueco Mundo..."

Minato stared at his Captain, his frown deepening.

"Look, I hate to tell you this, Minato, but you've got to let it go. Go tell your comrades from the village about this, and mourn together with them. That's all you can do at this point in time... I'm sorry."

Minato nodded stoutly; he couldn't stop a few tears from flowing down his face. Without even bothering to address his Captain, the Vice-Captain of the Fifth Division walked out of Shinji's quarters. A few Shinigami stopped to greet him, but they were met with a cold stare.

Shinji sighed again.

"Minato better get over this quickly. I don't want him becoming obsessed over this." Shinji looked down; there was a copy of the report sitting on his desk. He leafed through it, coming to a halt on one of the pictures.

It was a semi close-up of a humanoid figure of about five and a half feet tall, grinning madly as it was about to decapitate the poor soul that was taking the picture. The figure was wearing a hooded brown robe, so most of its face was obscured, save for the lunatic grin it was wearing. The only other striking feature about the figure were two Hollow mask-like protrusions sticking out of holes in the top of its hood. Shinji had heard of beings like this before; he believed they were called Arrancar, though he had never seen one in person. They didn't really take action in the human world.

Supposedly, Arrancar were Hollows that had removed their masks and gained the power of a Shinigami. If that were the case, and an Arrancar was leading this crusade, then no wonder the Hollows were able to become so organized.

He studied the picture again, noting the clearer features from the last time he saw a picture from Konoha.

"_The last time I was in Konoha... That was back when I was a Vice-Captain. I was called to defend the borders of Konoha against an attacking Adjuchas. A fox, if I remember. The damn thing was obsessed with destroying that village. I remember that now; that grinning fox Adjuchas was the only Hollow I ever lost to in my entire Shinigami car-"_

Wait... grinning... fox Hollow?

He turned back to the picture at hand, studying it closely, his heart beating in anticipation. He knew that grin from anywhere; it was burned into his brain after he had been defeated. Those two protrusions on the top of the figure's head... they looked familiar. Shinji stood up from his deskchair, calling two of his newer recruits into his quarters.

"Yes, Hirako-taichou?" they questioned.

Shinji pointed to the one on the left.

"Go to the Twelfth Division right away. Tell them Hirako-taichou sent you and request the residual reiatsu samples from the recent attack on Konohagakure no Sato, and the ones from the attack one-hundred and sixty years ago. It should still be in the archives of things from before its founding. Tell them to run a few tests on them, and see if we can find some kind of match," he ordered. The Shinigami on the left saluted and run out of the building. The Shinigami on the right waited for his orders.

"You have a much simpler duty. Go to the Ninth Division and tell them that we may need to update one of the Hollows in Seireitei's Most Wanted," he ordered. The other Shinigami mimicked his comrade, and then took off.

Shinji sat back down and calmed his breathing; they might need to hold another Captain's meeting. Seireitei was beginning to change for the worse; they wouldn't be able to keep up with the Hollows at this rate. And, they had been doing so well before.

* * *

Minato was glad that he had left Taiki and Akane at home today; the young, impressionable Shinigami wouldn't like to hear this. Physically, they were now fourteen years old, and seemed to be in that "teenage" phase. Still, they were getting along in life well, maybe they would surpass him and Kushina soon.

He had invited everyone else that he knew to the conference, though. Even Kushina didn't know what was going on yet, and it would break his heart to tell her. Other than that, some of Naruto's friends had joined the Shinigami forces, and they were eager to learn whether or not their friend was safe. All in all, the meeting consisted of many people, including himself, Kushina, Jiraiya, Tsunade, Kakashi, Asuma, Obito, Rin, Shikamaru, Neji, Hinata, Kiba, and Ino.

Minato was glad that he scooped up some of Naruto's friends after they died in the war, because they were getting quite proficient in their own right. Those five had become seated officers in their division. Kushina and himself were both Vice-Captains.

There were a few others within the Association that he didn't know personally, but they weren't seated officers. "_Their character is lacking, so there's no way they would ever be important..._" Minato thought, but he would never say it out loud.

Anyway, their eyes were all on him, staring at the Vice-Captain blankly. He was the one who had called this meeting to order, so it made sense that he would be the one talking. And boy, did he have news. He might as well not sugarcoat it.

"Everyone..." he began, as the listeners tuned in. "Konoha has been destroyed..." he said simply.

Silence. Dead fucking silence. Not a single voice was heard from that room as Minato delivered the words to them that would be most devastating to all of them. Their beloved village, the place where the Will of Fire burned strong, was now gone. Some people had their mouths opened, while others still simply stared wide-eyed. Whatever the case, there wasn't a single emotion that was calm in that room. Even Hyuuga Neji was visibly stunned. After nearly a minute of stunned silence, someone finally gathered their wits enough to speak.

"H-How?" asked Hyuuga Hinata, of all people. Minato had always had a soft spot for the girl, ever since she had arrived at the Shinigami academy. Especially after he learned that this was the girl who was after his first son's heart. She was almost as torn up at his absence as Minato was.

Minato's eyes were downcast, and the former Hokage refused to meet glances with anyone, afraid to see depressed and stunned glances.

"Hollows, but that isn't the most surprising facet of the whole ordeal. It was a wave of over one hundred thousand Hollows; they didn't stand a chance. But, it was coordinated with the kind of coordination a group of Hollows can't hope to have."

"So, you're saying this was someone's plan!" shouted Inuzuka Kiba. Minato stared at him; there were tears in his eyes, and he was reacting in the best way he possibly could: with anger.

"Most likely, yes! And, that's not where the report ends. I don't know much about the details of what happened, but it seems that there were no traits of a normal Hollow attack. Instead, it was like the villagers of Konoha just disappeared, never to be seen again."

"So, that means they could still be alive out there, right?" Shikamaru added his two cents into the conversation. Usually, he only attended these meetings out of obligation, but now he was paying rapt attention to the proceedings on display.

"I wouldn't get your hopes up on that, Shikamaru. From all accounts, this was a Hollow attack, and Hollows have never known to be merciful. Even if they're still alive, they're probably suffering some horrible fate, wherever they are." Jiraiya said stoutly. That seemed to be his way of dealing with it; he was purposely trying to keep any emotion out of his voice. Needless to say, it wasn't working, and he still sounded visibly upset. No one seemed to blame him about it.

"Well, are we just gonna sit back and let this happen? We need to bring whatever sick fuck did this to justice!" Kiba shouted passionately. He sounded unrefined, but his sentiments were shared by most of the group.

"Trust me, Kiba. That is exactly what we plan on doing. We can't let whoever was behind this to get away with it, and we certainly can't let it do this to another village. We _will_ find whoever did this..." Minato said, determination flowing through his voice. The others rose from their seats as well, they glared determinedly at Minato.

"If I know my Captain, he's already begun work on who the mastermind behind this, if there is one at all. It shouldn't be long before we figure the true circumstances behind the attack," Minato explained.

"I would like you all to wait patiently until that time comes. Don't try anything reckless, and don't show any emotional turmoil while you're on the job. I know this is a hard time, but we must mourn in silence," Minato said, his voice tinged with more sadness. These words seemed to drain the fire from everyone's spirit, and they slumped back in their seats, the realization that their village was _gone_ coming back.

"But, when we get our evidence, we will show the Hollows that did this our Will of Fire. We will bring them to justice for what they did to our beloved village. Even if Konoha is now in shambles, we will show them our spirit, the love that comes for everyone in the village." he shouted, the charisma of a former Hokage being embedded in his words.

He turned away from them, and his voice became much quieter as the more depressing aspect of this sank in.

"At this point, we can only pray that our villagers are safe." he paused, before turning back to them. "Wherever they are, I just hope that they aren't dead."

* * *

"I really appreciate you helping me get to the bottom of this, Kisuke," Shinji commented as he and Urahara walked through the halls of the First Division barracks. They were both on their way to another Captain's meeting regarding the fate of Konoha. Urahara was carrying two glass containers of what appeared to be concentrated reiatsu. Shinji looked like Hiyori had gotten to him again.

"No problem. This mystery over what happened to Konoha is something that will affect the input of new Shinigami, and we need to be prepared for this Arrancar, should he ever come onto the scene again. Have you sent word to the Ninth Division?" Urahara asked.

"Yeah, they're waiting for some solid evidence before they update their archive. We found the Hollow we were looking for, though. A small-sized fox Adjuchas going by the codename "Vulpes C."."

Urahara nodded.

"Yeah, and according to the reiatsu samples we got from the archive and the ones from the Seireitei's Most Wanted, he was there during both invasions. Except, he seems to be much more powerful this time. The first sample indicates he was a simple high-level fox Adjuchas one-hundred and sixty years ago, something any Captain here could take out. But, now he seems to be a Vasto Lorde class Arrancar Hollow."

"But, this doesn't _prove _anything. It just means that Vulpes C is a very strong suspect in being the mastermind behind the destruction of Konoha. According to the archives, he's been inactive in the human world since the attack on Konoha one-hundred and sixty years ago. The only reason his record hasn't been scrapped is because he was the main reason that Hollows now go to the Elemental Countries. I don't understand why he would become active again now," Shinji replied.

"Maybe he was just biding his time. But, it doesn't matter; if we get the proof on this Hollow, we should be able to follow his reiatsu signature after we've familiarized ourselves with these." Urahara motioned to the glass containers, containing the concentrated essence of a Hollow's reiatsu.

"I'll say. It's a very pungent reiatsu, and one I don't think I'll be able to forget. But, on to another concern... Come out, Sousuke!" Shinji called backwards down the hall, where it angled directly to the right; anyone hiding there would be out of view.

Neither Urahara nor Shinji looked surprised as a bespectacled Shinigami rounded the corner from behind them. A soft smile played on his lips as he observed the two Captains discuss.

"Hirako-taichou..." he said distantly.

"Ya shouldn't eavesdrop on folks so much, Sousuke. How much of our conversion did you hear?" Hirako asked. Urahara panned his head between the Captain and the 3rd Seat. Aizen's expression didn't change.

"Forgive me, Hirako-taichou. I was curious about the state affairs in Konoha, considering Minato-fukutaichou has been so distant lately. I couldn't help but overhear everything that you said. I apologize..." Aizen remarked.

Shinji ran a hand through his hair, and sighed exasperatedly.

"Whatever. Just don't let it happen again. I'm already in enough heat for blabbing what could be top secret information, but this news is gonna come out sooner or later, so I'll let it slide."

Aizen smiled and bowed at his Captain, before he dismissed himself down the hallway. Once he was out of sight, he clutched the hilt of his Zanpakutou, which was hanging at his side. This would be too easy.

The Captain's meeting was set up like a standard one, six Captains on each side, with the Sou-Taichou in the center in his chair. The far wall had space reserved for a projector image.

Yamamoto looked up expectantly as the two Captains entered the room, their supplies hindering their weight slightly. This was their meeting, after all. The other eleven Captains were already there. They looked at the other two blankly, as if they didn't care what Urahara and Shinji had to say.

Shinji took his place in the line of Captains, while Urahara began to set up the projector. After five minutes of tinkering with it, a light shone out of the narrow end of the camera, projecting the picture of the figure seen in the report.

A few Captains stared at the picture, while a few more glared at it. Either way, no one knew what to make about the figure. It clearly wasn't your standard Hollow by any stretch, given the humanoid figure.

"Regarding the incident in Konoha two weeks ago to this day, we believe that we have found a prime suspect in who was leading all those Hollows, as well as who orchestrated the attack," Urahara began. Yamamoto stared at him intently, but didn't stop his speech.

"Furthermore, I have analyzed the reiatsu at this attack, as compared to the attack on Konoha one-hundred sixty years ago by the Hollow known as Vulpes C. On both incidents, the reiatsu of Vulpes C has been noted to have existed in some way or form. In addition to that, he is now classified as a Vasto Lorde class Arrancar, rather than the Adjuchas Hollow from the first attack, making him a prime leader of Hollows. We believe that the picture taken here is of Vulpes C, if not another Arrancar directly under his control."

The Captains remained silent.

"We lack definitive proof at this point in time, but if we can browse through the archives on this particular Hollow, we may be able to crack this case and strike the source of the invasion before another one can occur. Would that be acceptable, Muguruma-taichou?" he turned to address the Ninth Division Captain.

Kensei looked thoughtful for a moment; he turned to Yamamoto, who nodded at him.

"I guess that would be alright, if we can get one step closer to solving this. Just don't make any modifications to his profile without any definitive proof," he said apathetically.

"Of course not, as a scientist I know better than to do that."

Yamamoto banged his staff against the hardwood of the floor, bringing the group's attention back onto him.

"Very well. I will leave the investigation to the Twelfth Division Captain Urahara Kisuke. The wanton destruction of Konohagakure no Sato is trampling all over the world's justice, and is an S-Class Security Threat to the Human World. The hypothetical mastermind behind this needs to be classified as a Top Secret Threat. Even if this is just a random attack of Hollows, this is a precarious situation. Without the input of future Shinigami from that village, I hereby order all Divisions to increase the intensity of their training. The Gotei 13 must NOT fall behind with the advancements of the Hollow race." He paused a little while to let the information sink in, before he banged his staff again.

"You are all dismissed!"

* * *

Two nights later, an unidentified figure snuck into the research facility, where the reiatsu samples of Vulpes C were being held. He was admittedly a little excited about the entire thing. That little bit of information he had heard would provide him with a perfect weapon for his army. If it was a Vasto Lorde class Arrancar, and led a massive army of Hollows, then this Hollow was powerful, and likely had more powerful Hollow and Arrancar within his ranks. The weak ones would be perfect for his experiments.

With _his_ Shikai, sneaking into the 12th Division's research facility was as simple as could be. Even with all the traps and security measures the place had, it would be so easy to conjure up some hypnosis so no one ever expected anything. He had already gotten through about half of the hindrances.

A brown-haired man in the Shinigami uniform of the Fifth Division adjusted his glasses, before he walked into the main lab where the samples were on display. The Twelfth Division really was quite useful to him; he got all his other equipment from them, and they never even realized that it went missing. Honestly, he almost hoped he had gotten drafted into the Twelfth Division, rather than the Fifth.

Ah, there was the display case now. There were two of them, but he would only need the one on the right. It would give him the means to track the Arrancar down, and since he was making a breakthrough on the Garganta, it would be soon that he would be able to set off.

"Shatter, Kyouka Suigetsu," he whispered, setting an illusion over the glass so that he could muffle the noise. He broke the glass completely, and grabbed the second reiatsu sample, before he placed an illusion to make it look like it was never missing. Honestly, some Shinigami would be fooled by anything, even a simple illusion.

That would keep them busy, but of course they would never be able to find their true objective. The man smiled softly; he really needed to back and put this in storage. He had to rendezvous with a young boy fresh out of the academy. Maybe he could pit him against their 4th Seat.

He set out of the laboratory setting; he hoped he could find that Arrancar and make him useful to his cause.

* * *

Well, Chapter 33 done. Many of you wanted to see Konoha's reactions, so here you all go. I hope it was up to your standards, and as always: Please Review!

**Translations and Other**** Features**

Kyouka Suigetsu: Mirror Flower, Water Moon

That's all for now,

**_Alban55_**


	34. La Caída de Reino Animal

Okay, I knew an important post like this was going to come sooner or later, so let me get this out of the way. I was inactive during the time when all the M-rated stories were getting deleted, and I don't know if it's sort of died down or what.

However, even though it was mostly lemons that were getting deleted (which I have none of), it also applies to violence. As such, I have created a back-up on another site just in case, because of the shenanigans in Chapters 31 and 32. Who knows, I might go back and tone it down to make it acceptable (even though I already did that before I even released it) See my profile for details on where I'm going, if you want.

* * *

Chapter 34: La Caída de Reino Animal

It had been several years since Naruto had imprisoned the warped villagers of Konoha within the bowels of his arena. During that time period, the Reino Animal continued to grow in size and power, swallowing up smaller Hollow kingdoms and being more than a match for Las Noches.

The two kingdoms entered a Cold War of sorts, both being afraid of mutual destruction if they were to come to blows. Baraggan had wanted a slightly weaker opponent he could face in war, not one that matched him on every scale. Naruto had clearly gotten out of hand fast, but Baraggan had never found the perfect opportunity to strike.

The humanoid king had actually gathered more of an army and took more territory when he had learned that Naruto was rapidly becoming a serious threat. So began the Hollow arms race, with each side trying to outdo the other. The only difference between the two was that Naruto had virtually no interest in Baraggan. He had forgotten all about the grudge he had against him years ago.

He was gathering power for the sake of challenging Soul Society. He couldn't afford to waste Hollows and resources on a smaller fish.

Absolutely everything in the kingdom came down to declaring war on the Soul Society. They were rapidly building both the resources, inventions, and military necessary to challenge them. The Libro de Ciclos was very clear on how they needed to go about it. There was just one thing that Naruto was lacking above all else.

That thing was information.

Soul Society's power almost entirely lay within its thirteen Captains, and overpowering them and destroying them was an imperative. Such a thing wouldn't be easy though, and Naruto lacked information on their Zanpakutous and even abilities in general. The way they lead, how they could be taken advantage of; there was a lack of information in the archives.

Naruto sat alone in his throne room, mulling over what he should do about the Soul Society. Hollows that knew the inner workings of Soul Society were hard to come by.

That was probably why it had never been invaded by a full-fledged Hollow force before. He messed with his brown robe a little bit, figuring that he would be at a standstill if he couldn't solve this conundrum.

He needed someone who _did_ know this information, one who could tell him everything he knew or better yet, one who had all this information recorded somewhere.

He had hid El Libro de Ciclos away in his back chamber, after one of his guards accidentally peeked in it and beheld its great secrets. He had ruthlessly slaughtered the guard after that, but the idea of the book becoming known throughout the world was unacceptable. Assassination attempts would double, even with the rebellion effectively under control.

Naruto was staring out the window when the door suddenly creaked open, and a panicked guard rushed into the throne room screaming his head off.

"Naruto-sama! Naruto-sama!"

Naruto refrained from killing him right there; he may have important information to report.

"What is it? Stop screaming your head off and tell me!" Naruto barked forcefully. The guard blanched a little but was otherwise too panicked to pay attention.

"L-Las Noches was crushed, my emperor," he said lightly, waiting for the explosion that was sure to accompany this. Surprisingly, it never came, which was odd considering the emotional and short-tempered king that sat before him.

"What? Las Noches crushed? Who the hell could beat them?" asked Naruto, more casually than one would think.

"Uh, that's just it, Naruto-sama. The ones that defeated Baraggan's kingdom are here, sir. They say they want to talk to you."

Naruto rubbed his chin, thinking he had seen a few shadows through the crack in the door. With a quick Cero, he obliterated the guard that had gave him this information, as the door to the throne room swung open in full.

The sound of three separate footfalls was heard in the room, as what entered there were not Hollows.

Naruto still looked bored, noticing the very human shapes that also lacked any kind of mask or hole on their bodies. So they weren't Arrancar.

"Shinigami, huh? Shinigami were the ones that took out that old fuck. I don't suppose I need to be told why you're here then," Naruto said.

All three of them seemed to wear a haori that Naruto knew belonged to Captains in Soul Society. The one that really caught his attention was the one in the center, though.

It was a brown-haired man with glasses. He had a soft smile plastered on his face that Naruto could tell wasn't genuine right there. He looked sort of dopey to Naruto, but there was something about him that just placed him on edge. He felt himself reflexively reaching for his Zanpakutou.

"I assume you are the king of Reino Animal. I have heard that an Arrancar was the one leading," the man in the center spoke. Even his voice sounded fruity to Naruto.

"That would be me, yes. You assume correctly, gayboy," Naruto taunted, but the man made no indication that he was even slightly flustered by Naruto's insult. Surprisingly, the dark-skinned Shinigami on his right seemed to be the one that was annoyed.

"Let's talk about something, King of the Reino Animal." Naruto raised an eyebrow, but decided to humor both them and himself for the time being.

"My name is Aizen Sousuke, and I am here to ask you one question. Are you satisfied with what you have? Do you ever feel this place is not where you should be? Don't you want to rise even higher?"

Naruto didn't like where this was going.

"I will aid you, and if you follow me-"

There was the kicker. Naruto rose from his throne, and blasted a single Cero at the three Shinigami that had the audacity to offer him terms.

They dodged it swiftly, each of them touching down at different points in the room. Aizen still looked calm, the silver-haired one had a stupid grin on his face, but the black one... the black one was furious.

"What a fucking crock!" Naruto bellowed, as the scattered Shinigami stared at the furious king.

"Me, follow you!? A Hollow following a Shinigami will _never_ happen. We're mortal enemies, designed for killing one another." Naruto walked down across the hall towards them, but he didn't draw his Zanpakutou. The three Shinigami had already drawn theirs.

"It is true that I desire something more than this simple little kingdom within Hueco Mundo. I'm not god after all, but I plan on destroying every last one of you miserable Shinigami. A Hollow like me following you when I'm trying to destroy you would be a disgrace. I will not become your lackey, unlike these two pieces of trash that you somehow managed to round up."

The black one was clutching his sword tightly, teeth gritting in rage. Naruto turned his attention to him first.

"Aw, did I upset you, you kiss-ass lackey? But, you probably can't do anything without your butt-buddy's permission, can you?" he mocked, before bursting into peals of laughter.

"Aizen-sama, give me permission to execute this Arrancar! Such a destructive soul could never serve justice in our army!" the black man shouted.

"Kaname..." Aizen said stoically. Tousen still looked pissed off at Naruto, and held his sword out in front in preparation to attack.

Naruto grinned psychotically. He drew his Zanpakutou, before ultimately deciding against using it and setting it back in its sheath.

Shunpo and Sonido collided as both combatants rushed each other, and Sonido ultimately won out as without even blinking, Naruto was suspending Tousen five feet in the air by his neck.

Tousen's Zanpakutou clanged against the floor as he placed his heads on the Arrancar's arm. Being a Captain, he obviously wasn't used to being overpowered so easily, as the look of surprise in his face would give away.

Naruto crushed the Shinigami's shoulder with his other hand and continued choking him. He started coughing violently, grunting as his bones broke.

"Do you have any idea who you're picking a fight with?" Naruto said lowly, thoroughly intending to end the Shinigami's life. Tousen looked over to Aizen, hoping that he would be the savior that he dreamt of.

"Wait," Aizen said, the smile on his face indicating that he in no way cared about his subordinate. If anything, he was thrilled that there was a Hollow that could defeat Tousen in a fight.

He held out his Zanpakutou in front of Naruto.

"Why don't you take a look at my sword first," he said, as Naruto released Tousen to focus his attention on the new enemy.

"Its name is Kyouka Suigetsu."

Naruto breathed out deeply.

"Shatter, Kyouka Suigetsu."

Aizen dropped his sword, but there was no change in the surrounding area. No power-ups or anything like that. He just dropped his Zanpakutou, and there was no effect.

Tousen was clearly incapacitated for the time being, so Naruto was prepared to move onto the next target. The grinning man seemed to be watching this passively, so he would move on to Aizen.

He drew his Zanpakutou now, ready to cleave the brown-haired Shinigami in two. To see that arrogant smile wiped off of his face.

He gave Aizen a horizontal slash across his torso; that was usually all he needed to finish a fight with his Zanpakutou. What he got was Aizen disappearing into a misty substance.

"_What the? Genj__utsu?" _he thought as Aizen disappeared into the hazy substance. He jolted himself out of his thoughts; he hadn't seen genjutsu in about two-hundred years, and there was no way anyone in the afterlife had the ability to use it. But the effect was so similar that he had been mistaken at first.

Out of reflex, he pointed his hands upwards in the Genjutsu release handseal, and tried to exert some reiatsu that would break the illusion.

Nothing happened.

Naruto grit his teeth and tried again. It was the same result as before. Already, his mind was running diagnostics as to what he would do. The Shinigami wanted Naruto to serve him, and if he were to be defeated and forced to serve, he would have to spend all his time working to defeat this Shinigami.

"My Shikai has the power of absolute hypnosis. I can turn a fly into a dragon, and a grassy field into a deadly swamp if I so wished to. I'm afraid there is nothing you can do to break the hypnosis. Once you are under its influence, you are permanently affected."

"_Explaining your power to the enemy. Either he's a fucking amateur, or he's very confident in his abilities. I'm going to wager a guess and say it's the latter_," Naruto thought.

It was times like this that Naruto wished he could've kept a few ninja skills from his time in life. It would've made the battle a little easier, despite the fact that he was much stronger now.

Aizen appeared again next to his throne, and Naruto used Sonido to get right next to him in a blink of an eye. He slashed him strongly, in an attack that would be guaranteed to kill him, also slicing through his throne and half of the main palace while he was at it.

A fountain of blood emerged from the diagonal slash, as Aizen was sliced in half straight through the chest. Naruto sighed in relief; seeing the blood come out made him positive that he had gotten Aizen that time. It gave him solace.

His eyes widened as a figure materialized directly behind, and Naruto was promptly stabbed.

* * *

Okay, I'm_ really_ sorry about this Chapter. It's short, and it's ugly, and it's unpolished, but it's necessary. I've fucked around long enough, and I wanted to get this out so I could explain the changes in plan due to the policy of deleted stories.

That's all I have for now.

**_Alban55_**


	35. La Primera Espada

**Akira Stridder:** Aizen's Zanpakutou is _**perfect** _hypnosis. Even if Naruto was a master of illusion (which he's not) he wouldn't be able to break it. And you're thinking of Tousen's Zanpakutou. Aizen's can only be countered if it's touched **before** its release.

**WarFan**: That's part of Naruto's personality; he doesn't have any guards, and his generals are off in their own wing of the palace. Aizen and company simply waltzed into the throne room.

In other news, I have an important announcement to make. Some of you may have noticed the poll I put up on my profile a while back. Ring any bells? Well, that poll has now officially closed, and the winner of the poll was _**Masked Demon**_ **_Vessel_.** And I'm very proud to announce that the first Chapter of that story is officially up! So, go check it out if you happened to vote for it.

* * *

Chapter 35: La Primera Espada

Naruto fell onto his throne, clutching the stab wound he had received from Aizen's Zanpakutou. Meanwhile, the bastard continued to stand there with that smug smile plastered all over his face, his bloody sword clutched at his side.

There was no one around that Naruto could call; he had no guards outside. It was up to him to end this fight. The black bastard was still glaring at him, and he looked eager to finish him off while in his wounded state.

"_His sword has so much power to it... but that's not even the main concern. Apparently this guy has control over unbreakable illusions; it's in a whole other league than Genjutsu. Genjutsu as least was breakable and required some kind of trigger to activate it. This Shinigami can just create illusions at will_..." he thought.

"I can see that you have already become an Arrancar; that makes things far easier," Aizen commented, stepping forward towards the downed emperor. Naruto clutched the sleeves of his brown robe in his hands, dragging himself to his feet in order to resume the battle.

He held his cutlass Zanpakutou out, while Aizen did the same thing. This final attack would finish things, for better or for worse.

The two combatants rushed each other, one with a calm smile on his face and the other with an enraged scowl. Naruto was the faster of the two, but he cleaved through nothing but air, while Aizen managed to get a heavy slash through Naruto's midsection. The Shinigami Captain's blows were so strong; Naruto had never felt anything like it.

Blood gushed from the wound, and Naruto collapsed onto his knees. Aizen sheathed his sword, clearly satisfied with the easy victory, all because of his Kyouka Suigetsu's powers.

"Aaah... what are ya going to do with him, Aizen-san?" asked Ichimaru, away in the corner. Tousen looked at the downed king, before he scoffed, clutching the area where Naruto had choked him.

Naruto had not yet lost consciousness. Rather, his brain was already thinking of ways how he could defeat that Zanpakutou's abilities. The fundamentals of his Shikai seemed very similar to how Genjutsu worked, but...

"I see that the reiatsu samples did not disappoint... We have now captured a very strong Arrancar. He will be a perfect addition into the Espada, most likely at a very high number," Aizen stated, as he looked over the wounded Arrancar.

"But, he was still no match for your Kyouka Suigetsu..." Gin commented. The three Shinigami loomed over the fallen Arrancar, who grit his teeth and scowled.

"Now, Emperor Naruto of the Reino Animal, you have two choices in this matter. You may serve me, and elevate to a plane of existence you didn't even believe possible. Or you can die thoughtless and ignorant. The choice is yours alone," Aizen said.

Naruto bowed, if only so Aizen wouldn't see the look of extreme hatred plastered all over it...

* * *

Naruto stood in front of a large mirror in the palace of Las Noches, as he slinged on his new Arrancar uniform. Fashionably, it was far more practical than the ragged brown robe he had worn for hundreds of years. He had already put on the white jacket, and he tied his sash around his waist after putting on his hakama pants.

The Arrancar inspected himself in the mirror; it was the same standard uniform as all the other Arrancar in Aizen's army, though his did have a slightly higher collar than usual.

After he was done dressing himself, Naruto punched forward, shattering the mirror into tiny pieces. He _hated_ having to do this, serve under that crackpot Shinigami. But, he had been patient before, and he could do it again. He was going to work in secret on breaking his Shikai's damnable illusions, and when the time was right he would overthrow his command in Las Noches and take control for himself. It helped that Aizen didn't know about the Libro de Ciclos.

"Naruto?" came a cold, emotionless voice from outside the changing rooms. Naruto hummed to himself, his eyes half shut. One of them moved over to see a silhouette in the doorway.

"Ulquiorra?"

The soft pitter-patter of shoes was heard as Ulquiorra entered the room and leaned against the far wall, slightly obscured by the shadows.

"Aizen-sama wants you to meet him in the throne room so he can decide your future in the Arrancar army. He is still figuring out where to draft the members of the Reino Animal. Some have already been inducted into the Numerós. Despite this, he wants all the exceptional killers there at once so we may figure out where we'll be placed within the Espada," Ulquiorra explained.

Naruto nodded in understanding. With the recent takeover of both Las Noches and the Reino Animal by Aizen, Naruto would've expected a large power vacuum to take place all over the Hollow plane with the absence of Hueco Mundo's two most powerful kings.

Despite this, Aizen had proven his power when he established dominion over both of those kingdoms, quashing any resistance as well as any motives of lesser kingdoms vying for the dominant power of Hueco Mundo.

Conquering both of those kingdoms also meant a large input of powerful Arrancar that were now under Aizen's allegiance. That meant that many of the old Arrancar that had served him before Aizen had toppled Las Noches would now be outclassed. There would be an extreme restructuring of the ranks, and Naruto could tell already that the old Espada and Numerós would not be happy about that.

Not that they could really do anything about it, though.

He and Ulquiorra were among the candidates that were being considered for entry into the Espada, the highest rank in the army that consisted of ten Arrancar far more powerful than average. In Soul Society, parallels could be drawn with the Captains.

Despite his loathing of Aizen and his forced service, he was very eager to find out what powerful Arrancar he had underneath his command that he could slaughter. As he finished dressing himself, he walked outside the door towards the hall, where he and his right-hand man would proceed towards the Espada orientation.

Ulquiorra was silent during the entire walk. His eyes kept panning downwards and he looked like he wanted to say something to Naruto, but couldn't. Naruto brushed off the feeling as soon as they had reached the double doors into the throne room.

It was a little more ornate than Naruto remembered from his time with Baraggan, though Aizen was in the middle of renovating the palace and making it more suitable for Shinigami, rather than Hollows like themselves.

He opened the door casually, squinting slightly as light flooded the room. A smooth voice rang out through the din.

"Welcome, Naruto... Ulquiorra. So nice of you to join us," it said softly, as Naruto was greeting with the bespectacled face of Aizen Sousuke. How he hated that face.

The two Arrancar stepped into the room, and Naruto looked around while Ulquiorra went to mingle. There were about twenty prospective Espada in total, meaning that Aizen was really upping the ante for entry. Besides Ulquiorra, there were familiar faces like Harribel, Nnoitra, Grimmjow, and Szayel. His rival king Baraggan was sitting alone in the corner by his lonesome, clearly not interested in talking to him.

Naruto guessed that Baraggan was feeling the same way about the loss of his kingdom, but it seemed that his subordinates at least still respected him. _His_ former subordinates seemed to be giving him the cold shoulder, except for Szayel surprisingly, who smiled at him. It was to be expected, after he had lost, all of the Hollows in his kingdom had immediately shifted allegiances.

Up the ornate staircase, there were ten chairs placed in a row directly below Aizen's throne, each of them containing an Arrancar that was looking down at them smugly. Their expressions were mixed, to be honest. A few looked genuinely excited to rip apart some fools that _dared_ challenge an Espada, while others glared down at the prospective fighters. The rest just looked on stoically. Whatever the case though, they all looked overconfident.

The row seemed to be order left to right from strongest to weakest; there was a skinny, snake-eyed Arrancar with a tattooed "8" on who was glaring at the Arrancar, with a blue-haired woman with the number "6" two seats to the left, who was smirking cockily down at them. She locked eyes with Naruto and grinned wider, like she was looking down on him. He sneered at her. Was she dense or something? Surely she should've been intimidated by the former king of the Reino Animal.

A brief murmuring was heard throughout the room, before Aizen rose from his seat and addressed all of them.

"Welcome, my dear future subordinates. I have gathered each and every one of you here today because I feel that you have the will, power, and leadership necessary to take one of the honored positions as Espada in my forces," he began.

"As you know, the Espada are the top ten Arrancar in Las Noches. They are given a number from one to ten based on the level of their strength. They also have the authority to command any Arrancar with a rank of eleven or higher. You should all be proud that you have been nominated for such a position," he said. Some of the Arrancar cheered, but Naruto just scowled.

"However, you will find that becoming an Espada is not such an easy task. The Arrancar that you see before you are in fact the current members of my beloved Espada. Each and every one of them is a combat expert, and they all command unique and terrifying abilities that make them worthy of their rank."

"If you are to become an Espada in my forces, you will have to challenge an Espada individually, and best him or her in battle to claim their title. Do try not to kill each other though, I would hate for some brilliant fighters to be wasted here," he said in a tone of voice that indicated that he didn't care at all.

Naruto scoffed. At least _he_ didn't sugarcoat anything, unlike Aizen.

"I'm feeling generous today, so I'll let you battle the Espada of your choice. Now let's see, if there is anyone who wishes to challenge an Espada for their rank, please let me know now..."

"_Might as well get this over with now..._" Naruto thought, as he panned his eyes throughout the selection of Espada he could challenge. His eyes landed on a bizarre Arrancar, whose head seemed to be a jar with some red liquid contained within. He or it wore a frilly Arrancar robe, but what caught Naruto's eyes were the two floating masked heads contained within the liquid. Naruto smirked, before it turned into a full, psychotic grin after he caught the sight of the tattooed "1" that was on both of the heads.

"_The Primera Espada, eh? He will do..._" he said, locking eyes with the strange Arrancar. The Arrancar stared back.

"I guess I'll go first, Aizen..." he said unenthusiastically, when no one else spoke up. Aizen smiled as he stared at the former king, clearly happy with this development.

"Naruto, hmm? I am very happy for your enthusiasm in joining the Espada. Who do you wish to challenge?" Aizen asked. Naruto lifted a hand slightly, pointing it towards the chair at the far left of the row.

"Him," he said simply, pointing at the Primera, and top dog among the Espada. This action only made Aizen smile even wider, like he knew Naruto was going to pick that option.

The jarred Arrancar simply sat there with his hands folded in his lap, not even acknowledging the fact that he had been chosen. In a way, he was probably expecting it. There were plenty of overconfident Arrancar that felt they had a shot at the top position.

Silence. Dead silence. The Arrancar that were vying for a position stared at him blankly; many of them had been in his kingdom, and more than knew what he was capable of.

The Espada looked at each other for a brief moment, before they burst out into laughter at the seemingly foolish challenge. They muttered things like "Is he stupid? Is he actually thinking of challenging Aaroniero?" The blue-haired female even rose from her seat, and pointed at Naruto.

"Trash, we know you're _stupid_ and all, but even challenging Aaroniero goes far beyond the realm of stupidity. Your arrogance here is unbelievable, young Hollow. When he is done you will be nothing more than a stain on the marble floor, which in of itself is an insult to Aizen-sama!" she shouted, looking down on Naruto.

Naruto grit his teeth, and his eyes became bloodshot. A few Arrancar could've sworn that they heard a "Snap!".

"_Yep, this cunt is __**definitely **delusional..._" he thought, suppressing the urge to just slaughter her where she stood. Such a thing would only get him in deeper shit with Aizen though.

Aaroniero ignored the jeers that his fellow Espada were slinging Naruto's way, and simply rose from his seat. He made his way down the stairs, and all of the Arrancar around him gave him a wide berth.

There were a few more snorting chuckles from the box above, where the remainder of the Espada were seated. Above them, Aizen looked upon the two of them passively. He raised his right hand, signifying that they could begin whenever they were ready.

The center of the room had been cleared of all obstructions, so the two Arrancar could fight uninterrupted. Naruto got into position about fifteen feet opposite Aaroniero, staring the Primera down.

Naruto raised an eyebrow as he witnessed the two heads speak in tandem.

"With the power that Aizen-sama has vested in us..." the top one said in a deep voice.

"And our Glotonería ability, nothing can stand up to us..." the bottom head said in a much more high-pitched tone.

"**Give up now!**" they said simultaneously.

The two-headed Arrancar pulled off one of his gloves, unveiling the squishy red tentacle that served as his Zanpakutou. That was supposed to be Glotonería, but how it was supposed to help him fight, Naruto didn't know.

"Do you ever shut the fuck up? Just hurry up and come at me so I can enjoy slicing that glass head of yours into pieces!" Naruto shouted, as he drew his sword.

More chuckling from the other Espada.

"Such a fool..." the two heads said, as Aaroniero readied his tentacle Zanpakutou. He was the one who made the first move, using Sonido to get the jump on his opponent.

Naruto did the same thing. The two clashed in the exact center of the room, Aaroniero's tentacle trying to match Naruto's cutlass Zanpakutou. The Zanpakutous ground against each other, and they sped to the opposite ends of the room, backs facing one another.

Naruto sheathed his Zanpakutou.

The Espada and the Arrancar's eyes widened as both heads of Aaroniero shrieked in pain. The Primera Espada collapsed onto his knees, and the sound of breaking glass could be heard.

A few seconds later, the jar containing Aaroniero's heads was sliced in half diagonally once, and then once more. The red liquid poured from the broken container, and the two heads were both cleaved through the middle.

The bottom one shrieked the loudest, moaning about how he thought Aizen was going to save him. The top head merely cursed Naruto, not willing to accept his defeat. A few seconds later, and both of them were dead.

The nine lower ranked Espada watched in shock and awe as the strongest Espada in their ranks was taken out in a single hit, with barely any effort from the opposite party.

The former generals in Naruto's army sighed; Aaroniero really was no match for Naruto. The Espada had looked like he was a Gillian, after all.

"Superb skills on display once again... Naruto," Aizen commented, the smile on his face widening quite substantially. He didn't even seem to care that Naruto had killed his finest Espada. Naruto scoffed at him.

"Yeah, whatever. I take it I'm the Primera Espada now or whatever?" he asked casually.

"But of course. All that needs to be done now is make it official. It is with great pride that I welcome you into the ranks of the Espada... You may be excused until that point in time, unless someone else wishes to challenge our new Primera Espada" he said silkily. No one moved a muscle.

Naruto sneered at Aizen, before he brushed his Arrancar jacket off and headed through the gilded doors. The other Arrancar watched him go. The other Espada in particular watched him with fear in their eyes, and they came to the realization that their lives were in danger if there were other challengers even half his level.

"_Well, shit..._" they all thought.

* * *

Naruto had retreated to his personal chambers after he had destroyed Aaroniero in battle, and had officially been drafted into the Espada ranks as the new Primera.

He lifted up his sleeve, clutching an area which was still red and raw. A black "1" was tattooed onto his left bicep, a clear reminder of the rank that he held.

"Naruto?" came the familiar voice from before.

"Ulquiorra? You really have a bad habit of sneaking up on me..." Naruto noted, turning to face his right hand man. The Espada orientation had gone well for the most part, with plenty of the Arrancars there taking a rank. Nearly all of the old Espada had been replaced by now, being thrown into the Privaron Espada or just outright killed. He didn't stay there for the whole event, but it was likely Baraggan was the Segunda Espada now.

Ulquiorra was now dressed in the same outfit that Naruto was, but his chest was exposed slightly, revealing the number "4" tattoo that now signified his ranking. All of his former generals had been drafted into the Espada, just like him. While he was the Primera and Ulquiorra was the Cuarta, Harribel herself had taken the Tercera spot. The others were down a little bit lower, though, never having advanced to Vasto Lorde class before Arrancarisation. Nnoitra was the Octava, Grimmjow the Novena, and Szayel the Décima.

Six of the Espada had come from the Reino Animal, making it the largest change in the Espada ranking system seen so far. Then again, Aizen had stated that the incarnations of the Espada Naruto had seen up there were the original ten, so there would definitely be more changes. Naruto predicted that there would be several changes in rank even among his former men. Nnoitra and Grimmjow would likely move up in time.

The new Cuarta Espada said nothing as he walked into the room, standing in front of Naruto who was sitting on an ottoman next to his plush bed. Naruto stared at him intently, a little apprehensive on what he was about to say. The bat Arrancar leaned in slightly.

"The generals of the Reino Animal will always be loyal to you..." he whispered, and Naruto's eyes narrowed. Ulquiorra had a reputation for being the most loyal general in the Reino Animal, but the others weren't so favorable. Harribel was beginning to lose faith in him as a ruler as she began to figure out what he had done over the years. Grimmjow and Nnoitra were pissed at him and thought him weak, but he could easily beat some fear back into them. Szayel seemed to be only other one who was still on his side, but he couldn't say for sure.

Ulquiorra said nothing more at that moment, but as he walked through the doorway, he said one final thing:

"When you are ready to overthrow Aizen, please let me know..."

Naruto smiled evilly.

* * *

Unfortunately for Naruto, the day where Naruto could fully overthrow Aizen was a very long way off. He was going to research the effects of Aizen's shikai in secret, with the help of Szayel. Hopefully, they could find someway to break it together.

Already, several months had passed since he and others became Espada in Aizen's army. Grimmjow had taken his old friends from his time as an Adjuchas, and made them his Fracción. At the moment, Aizen wanted something from him personally, so he was on his way to see what the damned Shinigami wanted.

For what seemed like the millionth time, Naruto pulled open the doors to Aizen's throne room and stepped inside. Being the Primera Espada meant he was called on often to lead the palace in the absence of Aizen and his commanders. They were still active Captains within Soul Society after all, and weren't ready to reveal themselves to their enemies just yet. Naruto wasn't complaining though; their absence gave him the perfect opportunity to work in secret on cracking the mystery of Aizen's shikai.

Aizen was sitting on his throne per usual, and Naruto still couldn't get the picture of an old, skeleton king that once sat on the throne. He at least was a much more reasonable rival.

"Welcome, Naruto. I trust you have been having a fine day?" Aizen asked amiably, in a tone that made Naruto want to rip his face off. Naruto grunted in reply, Aizen being unfazed by his rude attitude.

He walked up to the base of Aizen's throne, not even bothering to bow. He ignored a pair of eyes that stared at him from the side, apparently appalled by the lack of respect.

"As you are know doubt aware, we are constantly training new arrivals in combat so we may better combat Soul Society when the time comes. The influx of Hollow and Arrancar from both yours and Baraggan's kingdom had been infinitely beneficial, and for that I thank you..." he said politely.

"_Is he mocking me?_" Naruto growled in his mind. Aizen didn't seem to notice Naruto's anger, and he continued on with his speech anyway.

"Normally, I allow my Espada to choose whether or not they will lead Arrancar as part of their Fracción. However, there are a few talented Arrancar I feel could be used as Espada in the future if they shine underneath an Espada's tutelage. Consider this more of a _request_ if you will, but I would like you to take on your very own Fracción, and train our newest arrival to Las Noches," Aizen finished.

Naruto's head shot up, and he almost snarled at his new leader. Was Aizen stupid or something? He was by far the biggest loose cannon in the Espada; there was no guarantee he wouldn't kill his new Fracción on the spot.

As much as he was loathe to admit, he knew it wasn't a request. It was an order, and one he had to obey if he wanted to continue his undercover work on Aizen's shikai.

"If that is your request, _Aizen-sama_, then I will gladly fulfill it," Naruto spat out in loathing. Aizen knew full well that Naruto hated him, so he didn't comment on it.

"You may have already noticed the presence of another Arrancar in the room. You may advance into the center of the room. I want you to meet your new superior!" Aizen called out, to a figure that was wreathed in shadow in the corner of the room.

A young, green-haired Arrancar female walked confidently into the center of the room, her smug expression already flaring Naruto's temper even further.

"This is our newest Arrancar. We found her wandering the sands of Hueco Mundo outside of Las Noches. Apparently, she wanted to find a way in so she could join our cause. Her name is Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck, and she'll be your new Fracción as of today... Naruto," Aizen said softly.

"Aizen-sama, if I may protest this decision..." Nelliel spoke up. For the first time in a while, Aizen frowned at the outright display of disrespect, but he allowed her to continue.

"I do not believe a mere _child _is fit to be my superior in these matters. If he is a member of the Espada, I should hope that their standards will improve over time. I-" She was cut off completely, by a crushing orange reiatsu that slithered into her veins and put a crushing force on every muscle in her body.

Her eyes widened, and tears pricked at the corners of her eyes.

She collapsed onto her knees, and began choking on her own saliva. Her entire form trembled, and her eyes began to water. She gritted her fingers into the ground, and tried desperately to get a hold of herself, to no avail.

"You're damn lucky you have to be my Fracción... or else I would've killed you on the spot!" Naruto shouted, as his reiatsu faded, and Nelliel was able to breathe again. Aizen had regained his smile, being very much unaffected by the strong reiatsu that Naruto had emitted.

"I am _not_ a child. I'm _at least_ twice your age, your stupid brat, so why don't you go off of something other than stupid appearances, _little girl_," he sneered at her, as she moved her stringy hair that was sopping with sweat out of her face and glared at Naruto.

"I'm the Primera Espada, which means I'm the highest level Arrancar that Las Noches has to offer. I was also the ruler of the Reino Animal, perhaps you've _heard_ of it. Doesn't matter, the concerns of the Hollow kingdoms would've been before your time anyway."

"We're leaving. Follow me back to Primera's chambers; that is where you'll be staying from now on. And, I hope you're ready to experience hell..." he said to her, after she had fully recovered from the display of reiatsu.

Once again, Nelliel glared poisonously at the Primera Espada, and Aizen was left musing over the superior-subordinate relationship that he had just created. They already seemed to have a vitriolic hatred of each other.

Several weeks later, and Nelliel was beginning to flourish underneath Naruto's teachings, even if their relationship wasn't the most stable thing around. They still loathed each other entirely, but Nelliel seemed to thrive underneath harsh circumstances, and that was exactly what Naruto's training methods consisted of.

"Hell" was pretty much an accurate word to describe Naruto's training method, and it was pretty obvious that many of Naruto's training methods were thinly veiled attempts to kill her off. Yet, Nelliel survived, and was becoming a far better warrior than she had been before.

In fact, all of that rapid growth was beginning to make her cocky and arrogant. The young Arrancar had no respect for anyone around her, including her superiors.

"Again, Nelliel!" Naruto shouted, as Espada and Fracción practiced in the open sands of Hueco Mundo. Nelliel looked a little worse for wear, with several deep burn and cut wounds all over her body. Her Arrancar uniform was in tatters.

"Can't I at least release?" she shouted at him.

"No!" he shouted back immediately, before launching another orange Cero at her. The new Arrancar jumped out of the way of the beam, scuffing herself as she fell in the sand.

"What's the point of me just dodging your Ceros. It hardly seems like a civilized way to train me!" she argued back at the Primera, who took the time to launch another one.

"Yeah, that's right. It's not really civilized, isn't it? But, as long as I'm doing this, there's a greater chance that you'll be killed by one of my Ceros!" he laughed.

"You bastar-" she was cut off by another orange blast.

Several hours later, and Nelliel had still not been killed by the Ceros that Naruto threw her way. As Naruto charged up one more Cero, he sighed before releasing the energy.

"Alright, that's enough Nelliel. Clearly you're not just going to die by getting Ceros fired at you..." He sounded disappointed. Nelliel fell into line with Naruto, reluctantly waiting her next orders.

"Let's go..." Naruto said sullenly, and Nelliel followed Naruto back into the palace of Las Noches. As they were about to enter Naruto's personal wing of Las Noches, they were halted by a very obnoxious voice.

"Yo, Naruto! I see you've taken your little _bitch_ out for some training, huh?" it asked. Naruto and Nelliel turned around, seeing Nnoitra and his Fracción Tesla standing to the left side of the hallway.

Naruto grunted.

"Aw, don't be such a turd. Why don't you talk to me? I know you've been feeling cranky ever since you got your ass kicked close to a year ago, but you can at least tell me what's going on with your little whore!" he shouted.

"You disrespectful beast! How Aizen-sama made you an Espada is beyond my imagination! You are crude, unrefined, and a miserable excuse for a warrior!" Nelliel said.

Nnoitra sneered at her, bringing his face in to tell her off, but Naruto beat him to the punch. Literally. The Primera simply whirled back his fist and smacked Nelliel right in the jaw.

The girl flew back several feet, crashing into the wall and creating a sizable crater.

"Nelliel! Regardless of how you feel about his attitude, the fact remains is that Nnoitra is an Espada, while you are nothing but a weak, insignificant Fracción. You _will_ show respect to him!" It wasn't a request.

Nelliel scoffed and got to her feet, turning her nose up at Naruto before she ran away off to her own personal chambers, practically spitting in the face of her superior's orders.

"_Damn cunt. She's nothing but trouble..._" Naruto thought to himself. Meanwhile, Nnoitra seemed to lose interest in the situation at hand, so he called to Tesla to follow him.

Whatever the case, Naruto could tell that Nelliel wasn't fond of Nnoitra, and that the feeling was mutual. If Nelliel ever became an Espada, things would be very problematic between the two.

Naruto grinned as he came to a realization. He may have just found a suitable way to get Nnoitra back on his side, and away from Aizen.

* * *

Well, another one bites the dust.

**Translations and Other Features**

Glotonería: Gluttony

Primera: First

Segunda: Second

Cuarta: Fourth

Tercera: Third

Octava: Eighth

Novena: Ninth

Décima: Tenth

Fracción: Fraction

Well, that's all for now. Again, _**Masked Demon Vessel **_is now up, so check that out if you please.

_**Alban55**_


	36. La Tercera Espada

**sendicard**: The thing about Nelliel is that she's a young Arrancar at this point in time, even if her appearance is no different. I don't think it would be too much of a stretch to have her mature by the time she becomes an Arrancar.

**Impstar**: I'll put a reference guide at the bottom of the chapter. Hopefully that will clear things up.

**Guest**: It's in between the 100 years when the Visored were created and canon events. You can leave how close it is to your imagination.

**metaltaco/Speedemon**: I'm speculating that Starrk was a somewhat new arrival at the time of canon Bleach, so Aizen hasn't discovered him yet.

This story has got over half a million views now, so thanks for that.

* * *

Chapter 36: La Tercera Espada

"Nnoitra... I do not care if you are the Octava Espada. You are not a warrior! You are a beast who loves nothing more than killing. Someone like that will never be able to defeat me," Nelliel said calmly, as she was accosted by Nnoitra in the hallways of Las Noches.

"Shut up, Nelliel! All this arrogant talk... this impudent talk, when you are simple Fracción garbage! And yet she still try to talk this way to your superior! Where do you get off doing this? A woman like you in the Arrancar army is a good enough excuse for me to target you!"

"A true fool..." Nelliel muttered, much to the ire of Nnoitra. He growled like a wild animal, and held his scythe-like Zanpakutou out in front of him in a clear sign of an attack.

"That's it, I've had enough of your crap. I'm just gonna kill you right now, so just try and see how you fare against me and see if I'm able to defeat you," Nnoitra shouted, brandishing his scythe.

Nelliel nodded in understanding, having seen this coming for a while now. Ever since she had become the Fracción of the Primera Espada, she had been targeted by the Octava almost constantly. Two years had passed since the day she first met him, and he had never stopped hating her. And, it looked like now was the time when he had finally snapped, and was fully ready to kill her.

She drew her Zanpakutou and held it in front of her, unknowingly telegraphing her attacks as she thought of how she was going to defeat Nnoitra.

Nnoitra, being the far more experienced fighter picked up on that easily. She was consistently looking at his unguarded left side, and her Zanpakutou was raised to go for an attack to that angle. She was all too easy to read.

With great strength, he swung his Zanpakutou at the girl, and the two blades clanged against each other again and again, Nelliel's katana hardly holding up against Nnoitra's scythe.

Sparks flew as Nelliel went in for a slash that would've taken off Nnoitra's head, but it was blocked by the concave part of Nnoitra's crescent scythe. Nnoitra switched his grip on his Zanpakutou, sliding it down the blade of Nelliel's own in an attempt to lift it out of her hand.

The female Arrancar smartly pulled out after that moment, taking time to readjust her grip to avoid having her sword get pulled from her hands.

She dodged to the left as Nnoitra tried an upward strike. He hopped into the air with surprising agility after that, angling his scythe downward, trying to use gravity to obliterate his opponent.

He got his blade stuck in the ground, but with his kind of strength he had dislodged it within a second, giving Nelliel no time to counterattack.

Nelliel still rushed in, ignorantly thinking that she had still created an opening.

"You're open!" she shouted, as she too jumped in the air with greater agility, swinging her Zanpakutou at a much wider angle. Nnoitra smirked, before he threw his arms open as if he was going to embrace that attack.

Nelliel winced and hesitated at the unorthodox move, something that would cost her, though she still went in for the attack anyway. It was less powerful than it would've been, because now her strike was plagued by hesitation and doubt.

She slashed her Zanpakutou down his torso, shocked as she saw sparks begin flying from where the blade made contact. When she was done, Nnoitra hadn't even flinched, and instead of his body being in tatters, her blade had been dented instead.

She grunted, and tried to get away from Nnoitra's range, but she was far too slow. Her lackluster attack had made her open instead, after what was now an obvious feint attack by Nnoitra.

She hung in the air with bated breath, until Nnoitra thrust his weapon forward and caught her in the shoulder, sending the new recruit flying back. Nnoitra retracted the weapon, hissing with satisfaction at his success.

Nelliel screamed in pain as she clutched her deeply wounded shoulder; her Zanpakutou clattered to the ground uselessly as she squirmed in the sand. It would be a total loss in her favor if she couldn't figure out how to fight with that injury.

She wouldn't have time to think, because Nnoitra was already speeding towards her as fast he could, his scythe outstretching for the killing. With her adrenaline kicking into overdrive, she grabbed her Zanpakutou and blocked the downward swing. Her katana broke in half after that, but she at least avoided the fatal blow.

While Nnoitra was recovering from the recoil, Nelliel used Sonido to disappear and try to make her escape from the rabid Arrancar. She popped onto a roof and fell to her knees, the wound acting up again.

"Oi, you! Get your bitch-ass back here, Nelliel!" Nnoitra shouted in his raspy voice, after spotting Nelliel on the rooftop. He ran over to her position, but Nelliel sped away. Fortunately for her, Nnoitra wasn't really that fast, and she could easily outmaneuver him even in her injured state.

"Where the hell are you?" he asked, as Nelliel hid in the rafters of a dome outside Nnoitra's personal chambers. She watched him down there rapidly searching for her, before he placed a hand on the ground.

Nelliel gasped.

"_Pesquisa_..." she thought, as she clutched the marble she was holding on to. Her position wouldn't last as a valid hiding spot; she would have to get into the main portion of Las Noches, where fighting wasn't tolerated.

As quietly as she could, she jumped down from the rafters, wincing from her injured shoulder. There was an open door across the desert plain that lead to the main foyer of Las Noches, and she could probably out-speed Nnoitra to get there.

With her speed, she reached it five minutes later, effectively cutting off her pursuer from reaching her. He wouldn't dare attack her now, but the fact remained that she was in danger around Nnoitra. Whenever she stepped out into the open she would have to watch her back for any potential attack from him.

"_I need __to go to Naruto and demand more training... At this rate I'm going to get killed by him if I don't make it into the Espada and outrank Nnoitra..."_

She wandered the halls of Las Noches' interior in a slump, wondering if she should seek out some treatment for the injury that she received from Nnoitra. The medical wing was far away though; she was in the chamber where Aizen and the Espada held their meetings. Naruto's, and by extension her personal chambers were directly next to this building.

She gasped as the double doors to the Espada meeting hall had opened. Apparently there had been some kind of conference between Aizen and an individual Espada rather than the whole group.

As luck would have it, the Espada Aizen seemed to be having a conference with was _her_ commanding Espada, though whether that was lucky or unlucky was in the eye of the beholder.

She winced as both of her superiors laid eyes upon her, annoyed confusion on Naruto's face as well as amused confusion on Aizen's. Naruto briskly walked up to her, before he backhanded her casually.

"_Why_..." he hissed, as he glared down at the fallen Arrancar with nothing but hatred. Nelliel gasped for breath as she clutched her scuffed cheek; that blow had penetrated her Hierro.

"Is my Fracción _so_ weak that she'd show up to me _injured_? Who's the opponent you crawled away from shamefully this time?" he asked, his abusive nature overriding anything else.

Aizen watched the hideous display between Espada and Fracción with a mirthful smile, not even once thinking about whether or not he should help Nelliel. Rather, he was focusing on his strongest Arrancar himself.

He supposed that Naruto had changed quite a bit since the fall of his kingdom and his subsequent induction into the Espada. The rumors he had heard of Naruto were of a very violent and brutal, yet usually jovial fellow. Naruto loved to smile, even when he was disemboweling his unsuspecting victims.

Nowadays, he had a far surlier disposition, rarely ever smiling unless it was an opponent who could grab his attention. Aizen supposed the loss of his kingdom was to blame for the personality change.

"It was Nnoitra..." she whispered to herself, so that Naruto could just barely hear it. Naruto's mood seemed to take a 180 after that, and he began chuckling.

"I see... I expected as much. It's a good thing he's making your life as miserable as possible, now isn't it?" he sneered at his Fracción, before he reached out his hand.

"Get up."

He grabbed her long green hair, getting a firm grip on her tresses before he tugged her mercilessly to her feet. It almost looked out of place, as Nelliel was quite a bit taller than Naruto.

She cried out in pain as Naruto dragged her along the hall, not mindful of her injuries in the least. No matter how hard she seemed to struggle, his grip never loosened.

The young Arrancar continued to protest all the way back to Naruto's personal quarters, where Naruto finally let go of her hair at the door to hers. She fell to her knees, clutching her scalp where Naruto had almost ripped out her hair by its roots.

"Now, Nelliel, do you understand _why_ you lost to Nnoitra?" he asked firmly. Nelliel glared at him through her green hair, digging her fingernails into the marble ground.

"Because you're not giving me enough training," she blurted out, before she instantly regretted that sentence. Naruto glared at her ferociously, before he released his spiritual pressure, effectively cutting off Nelliel's breathing.

He swung his right foot back in a wide arc, before he clipped Nelliel in the cheek in a sharp kick, propelling the kneed Arrancar into the wall behind her, creating a small crater.

He turned his back to her, still glaring at the crater he made in the wall.

"Okay, Nelliel, I'll _tell_ you why you lost to him. It's not because my training is lacking or anything; it's simply because you are _weak_. If I had any other Arrancar underneath my command, they would be _thriving_, and at the very least be an Espada by now. Yet you still can't even keep up with the Octava. Pathetic..." he sneered.

Nelliel gurgled blood, and the red liquid spilled over onto her Arrancar uniform. She looked up to Naruto, her expression unreadable. Naruto stared back.

"If you're so eager to get harsher training though, I'd be more than happy to... _obli__ge_..." he said evilly, as Nelliel could only wonder what she had just gotten herself into. That grin on his face never, ever meant anything good.

Three days later, after her wounds had almost completely healed, she and Naruto were facing opposite each other on the sands directly outside the palace.

Naruto's jaw was set and stony, as rigid as one of the quartz trees that littered the Hueco Mundo desert. Nelliel tried to look emotionless, but on the inside she was nervous. She had no idea what Naruto had in store for her.

They stared each other for a little while longer, and after one Sonido, Naruto had flashed out of existence. Nelliel drew her sword, and as soon as she did, Naruto appeared and kicked it out of her hands.

The Zanpakutou twirled in the air and became stuck in the sand a distance away from the battlefield, but Naruto had already grasped Nelliel by the throat, choking her tightly.

"_Thi_s _isn't training; this is a fight!_" she thought to herself, as the training was far more brutal than even Naruto's worse training methods. Now, he was actively trying to kill her.

He used his free hand to charge up a Cero, which at this point blank range would obliterated her head and leave nothing of it left. She cried out as she placed her hands over his, and began kicking in order to try and loosen herself.

She managed to free herself eventually, but not before Naruto gave her a Hierro-coated backhand through the head. Nelliel knew already that he wasn't going to use his Zanpakutou.

He seemed to throw her to the position where her Zanpakutou landed, so she was fortunate enough to be able to recover it. She grabbed and dislodged it from the sand, before she used Sonido to try and get a few quick slashes in on Naruto.

Like with Nnoitra, his strong Hierro tanked them all easily, and he didn't even bother trying to dodge it. Instead, he brought his head back and performed a headbutt, their masks meeting one another.

She clutched her head and jumped back away from her opponent. She held her Zanpakutou horizontally at arm's length, as she rubbed the blade. It began to glow with a magenta reiatsu.

"Declare-"

She was cut off as Naruto appeared before her, grasping her blade in his right hand and wrestling it from her grasp before she could release. It fell into the sand again, as Naruto charged up twin Ceros from his index fingers that he intended to fire at Nelliel.

"Damn it!" she shouted, as she was completely outclassed. It was no surprise really; she was already completely outclassed by the Octava Espada. The Primera was in a league of his own.

She used Sonido to get as far away from her commanding officer as possible, making sure to use it as much as possible to keep him on edge. He released one of his Ceros, the beam just missing her as she flashed away. The other one missed completely.

Naruto watched forlornly as she disappeared into the night; he wasn't even going to bother chasing her and finishing her off. He liked killing games, not chasing games.

He smirked in the direction that Nelliel had run in, before he nonchalantly turned his back, and walked back into the palace.

* * *

Nelliel stood in the darkness of the Primera Espada's room, watching over the young-looking Arrancar as he slept. He looked remarkably peaceful while he slept, a stark contrast to what he was like when he was awake.

She drew her Zanpakutou slowly, making sure she didn't make enough noise that would potentially wake Naruto. She winced as the sword gleamed in the dark, but she held it in front of her anyway.

She growled as she remembered the abuses she went through during her time underneath Naruto's service. She never wanted that to happen to her ever again. She readied her sword in a downwards stabbing position, prepared to stab her Zanpakutou right into his foul head.

She grunted softly as she thrust forward, before the blade was halted in its track by a hand that shot out from underneath the covers and grabbed the blade in mid-attack.

She gasped, as she looked down and saw two red eyes looking directly at her, glaring at her intently.

"Hello, Nelliel. Fancy meeting you here..." Naruto said casually, with an undertone of hate in that voice of his. Nelliel grimaced, and wedged the sword free from his grasp. She yelled out a war cry, before she rushed in with the intent to kill.

The sword was knocked from her hands easily.

"Nelliel, I once ran a kingdom where a good portion of the populace conspired to kill me. If you thought I didn't sleep with one eye open, then frankly you're an idiot," Naruto said calmly.

"You..." Nelliel said.

"I thought our little training session would've made it clear that I've disowned you as my Fracción. I don't care if Aizen wants me to train you to become an Espada; my patience with you has run out!" he shouted, turning on the light in his room.

"You're so pathetic that you aren't even worth killing! Become an Espada, and then we'll talk. Or fight, as I should say. Become the Segunda for god's sake, and then challenge me for the Primera spot. I'll enjoy crushing my former Fracción then, because right now it's clear that you'll do nothing but run away from me..." he stated as an afterthought, as Nelliel was already in the doorway.

"I'll become stronger on my own, Naruto. It's clear that you are not going to help me grow stronger; you never have. All you've done is abuse me and try to kill me. These past two years have been miserable. I swear, I'll become stronger than Nnoitra, and stronger than you. I will take the Primera spot for myself, and end your life. That, I promise..." she said, her face stained with tears. The young Arrancar tripped over her own two feet, before she sped off down the hall before Naruto could chase her.

* * *

"Welcome to the Espada... Nelliel," said Aizen politely, as the large number "3" was etched into her back while she was sitting at the Espada table. Overall, she looked proud of herself, having ascended to Tercera Espada all on her own, now being inferior to only Naruto and Baraggan.

The other Espada were looking a little downtrodden, as most of them had been moved down a rank with Nelliel's recent addition into the Espada. Szayel had been ejected from the group completely. For she did not enter through way of challenge; her skills had been recognized by Aizen himself, and she was awarded the rank based on that alone.

Out of all the Espada though, none of them looked angrier than Naruto himself. Although he was the Primera, and Nelliel was the Tercera and would still be little match for him, she would most likely become a thorn in his side sometime in the near future. It didn't help that she didn't fit in his ideal vision of what _his_ Espada were going to look like. All of his former generals had been bumped down a rank, and Szayel had been booted from the group completely.

Ulquiorra, now the Quinta Espada, stole a glance at Naruto. Harribel, now the Cuarta did the same. Even they didn't look happy about this turn of events. Nnoitra and Grimmjow were fuming however, Nnoitra because of how much he despised Nelliel, and Grimmjow because he was now the lowest ranked Espada.

Naruto didn't pay much attention to the topic of the monthly Espada meeting, as he was too busy focusing on what kind of threat Nelliel would become to him. The obvious solution would be to just get rid of her now, but that would leave too much of a mess and Aizen wouldn't be very happy about that.

"_Maybe I can get Nnoitra to help me on this... and Szayel too. I doub_t _he's very happy after he's been booted from the Espada. He'll obviously be looking for any way to reclaim his spot,_" he thought. The sooner they did something about Nelliel the better.

"You are dismissed..." Aizen droned on, and Naruto turned to look at him. He had been spacing out for so long that he didn't even hear Aizen dismiss them. Hopefully, he would be able to get to Nnoitra soon.

A month later, and Naruto had walked the halls in a foul mood. A numerós bowed to him respectfully as he passed, and Naruto thanked him by bisecting him horizontally.

"Was that one of Baraggan's Fracción? Oh well, I doubt he'll miss that one much anyway! I know how much of a pain Fracción can be." he said out-loud. He had made progress on getting Szayel to help with the Nelliel case, but Nnoitra was being as stubborn as ever. He challenged Nelliel to a fight just about every day now, and he _always_ lost.

"Come to think of it, she doesn't bring her lame pals to those fights anymore. Maybe she's grown confident to go alone to this sort of deal anyway?" he said, before he noticed three shadows wandering down the hallway in front of him.

"Well, speak of the Diablo..." he whispered to himself, as he noticed just who it was. Nelliel was walking the down the hall at that moment, her kiss-ass lackeys following right behind her.

"Going somewhere?" he asked as she passed by him, her Fracción scurrying ahead of her to get some distance between them. Pesche and Dondochakka... he thought that was what their names were. Nelliel huffed lightly.

"That is none of your business..." she said, before she caught sight of the Arrancar corpse that she saw splattered all over the hall.

"Did you do that?" she asked, almost a little angry at his actions. Naruto raised an eyebrow, before he huffed and nodded.

"Just killing anyone you feel like. You're a wild animal, not a..."

"Yeah, yeah save it. I know you like to get off by giving this speech, but I don't care if you think I'm a warrior, or a wild animal, or a whatever. All I care about is the fact that I _know_ I could whupp your bitch-ass so hard you wouldn't be able to sit down for a year!" he taunted.

Nelliel turned around, and almost drew her sword.

"Oh? What's this, now? You wanna hang with the big dogs now, do ya? Don't you have smaller fish to go after or something? I mean, you go out of your way to fight one every damn day. And to think you claim to hate battling..." he shook his head, his tone taking a mock scolding.

"What did you s-!" she shouted, before a hand darted in front of her, blocking her path.

"Pesche..." she said.

"Please just ignore it... Nel-sama. He is doing nothing more than taunting you into a fight at the moment. It's not worth it to fight with the likes of him..." Pesche reasoned.

The three Arrancar turned their backs to Naruto, with Nelliel throwing one last cold look his way. Naruto couldn't resist getting in one more taunt to her.

"Yeah, just run away, little Tercera. But always remember that big, bad Primera is gonna get ya!" he cackled, bursting into peals of laughter as he saw Nelliel wince subconsciously.

Naruto knew better than to just go off on his own though. He knew exactly where she was going, and what was going to happen next. He didn't wait any longer, so in a quick flash, he was gone.

He reappeared on a roof outside the main foyer of Las Noches, where the artificial sky gave light to anything underneath the dome. He honestly hated that little bit of renovation that Aizen did, but then again he hated everything that Aizen did.

He had smothered his reiatsu to make him undetectable, and hid in the rafters of the closest building he could find, where he was watching Nelliel and Nnoitra down below. It looked like they were about to fight.

Naruto watched on in silence as Nnoitra rushed Nelliel, but she was just too fast to him to outmaneuver. Repeatedly, he kept getting thrown in the wall of building he was resting on.

"Okay, we're done here," Nelliel said as she sheathed her sword. "I'm glad we finished up in time for lunch! Those two will begin to worry if I'm out here too long..."

Naruto drowned out the following speech, which Nelliel always made after she had defeated Nnoitra. He had heard it several times before; it was always about how they regained logical minds when they became Arrancar. And logical minds needed a reason to fight.

"And you lack that. I do not have a reason to fight you, and therefore I have no obligation to finish you off."

"_What a __crock of shit. Big words coming from a bitch who couldn't even stand up to Nnoitra a decade or two ago..._" Naruto thought from his perch. Nnoitra seemed to have had enough as well.

"I have a reason! I hate you!"

Nelliel sighed. "That's not a reason... That's instinct..."

"You are an animal. I don't recognize you as a warrior, and that means you're not someone I have to fight. I don't feel like being burdened with taking the life of someone who's not even a warrior..." she finished.

"_And there it is! The same telegraphed speech every time... Don't you see_, _Nelliel? We're all animals here, not warriors. Even you. If you were really as righteous and logical as you claim to be, you wouldn't even be holding this grudge against me! If you don't get rid of that retarded philosophy of yours and embrace your inner animal, you'll never be able to beat me, let alone challenge me..."_ Naruto thought.

Nelliel had already walked away, and Naruto snapped himself out of his thoughts to witness the perfect opportunity to get rid of Nelliel. If things went right, she would fall behind in strength, and simultaneously he would regain Nnoitra's loyalty. If things went wrong, he could still pin the blame on Nnoitra for Nelliel's disappearance/death. It was perfect.

Nnoitra was already conversing with his own Fracción, Tesla, when Naruto jumped from his perch and landed right beside him, his coattails flapping behind him. Tesla balked at the appearance of the strongest Espada, and backed away sweating. Nnoitra didn't look too happy to see him.

"What you do want, Naruto?" he sneered. Despite the disrespect, Naruto smiled.

"I have a proposition for you, Nnoitra..."

* * *

Later that day, Nelliel just couldn't find her Fracción, Pesche Guatiche and Dondochakka Birstanne. She had looked high and low for them all over her personal sector, but they were just nowhere to be found. And it was right in time for dinner as well.

"Pesche... Dondochakka..." she called, as she stepped out in the main sands of Las Noches, where Nnoitra was brandishing his scythe as her menacingly.

"Looking for something?" he asked.

"That's none of your business..." Nelliel responded, before she passed Nnoitra.

"Carrying your weapon around like that is just a threat. If you want to appear strong, keep it hidden while you're walking around..." she lectured to Nnoitra, who only smiled deviously.

Just as Nelliel had walked past Nnoitra, there was a massive explosion, and the wall right beside them crumbled to pieces. From the opening of the wall spilled two particular Arrancar. Though, it was generous if you could even _call_ them Arrancar anymore.

"Pesche... Dondochakka..." Nelliel gasped out in horror at what she saw before her. Besides their grievous injuries, there was something else very striking about the two Fracción.

"I-I'm v-very sorry, N-Nel-sama," Pesche managed to gasp out, though what he was apologizing for, Nelliel didn't know. She looked up to Nnoitra in horror, her temper getting much more ignited at the sight of him.

"You completely tore off their masks, didn't you?" she asked, almost ready to throw up at the unspeakable act amongst Hollows. It was the worst crime imaginable.

"How could you?" she screamed.

"So what? Those two were weak," Nnoitra said casually, before he swung his scythe Zanpakutou at her. Nelliel drew her sword in response to that, blocking the attack.

"How 'bout it? I gave you a reason to fight me!" Nnoitra roared.

"No..." Nelliel began, as the two combatants broke off from each other. "This isn't a reason to fight, but... you've hurt people that were very dear to me," she whispered.

"And you're going to pay for it!" she said, as she rushed Nnoitra, her sword at the ready.

She forced the Octava into the back wall, before she kicked him forcefully, breaking the wall and sending him to the sands below. Once down there, Nnoitra blocked a few more strikes from her, before he jumped over her and purposely let himself open.

"Too slow," Nelliel shouted as she slashed at him. The second she hit skin though, Nnoitra vanished into thin air. Nelliel's eyes widened in surprise, and she looked around frantically for her opponent, but before she could, her mask and scalp were cracked open.

Nnoitra stood over the injured Nelliel, before he scoffed and grabbed the unconscious Arrancar by the scruff of her neck.

A few minutes later, and he was standing on the balcony of Las Noches, the perpetual night of the desert watching over him. He leaned in over the edge, three bodies being dragged along beside him.

"What do you want? Your job's done, Szayel Aporro..." he said, as the pink-haired Arrancar made himself visible from the shadows. Szayel smiled lightly.

"Don't say that, we're comrades who worked together to further the same ambitions, and we've known each other a long time, what with Naruto and all. At least let me observe the subject until the experiment ends."

"I don't remember sharing any of your ambitions, loser. Besides, everyone knows you're only doing this so you can get your old position in the Espada back. You, who were booted from the Espada for being too weak. It was coincidence that our interests overlapped for a moment..." Nnoitra explained.

"We worked together so that you could fight against Nelliel and I could conduct research on a new device, and then of course there was the that incident with-" He was cut off.

"Are you two quite finished? All three of us know the real reason why we're getting rid of Nelliel..." came Naruto's voice, as he too emerged from the shadows.

"I set this up for both of you, Nnoitra, Szayel Aporro. I made it so you could fight Nelliel and you could reclaim your position in the Espada," he said to Nnoitra and Szayel respectively.

"I never did figure out why you wanted her gone so badly, Naruto..." Szayel admitted.

"Idiot! It's because she doesn't fit into the ideal Espada..." he began. Nnoitra and Szayel Aporro looked at him quizzically, like they didn't know what to expect.

"Anyone could figure out that she's Aizen's golden child right now; he wants her to replace me as the next Primera. But, even her position of the Tercera is not beneficial to any of us. She wasn't around when me and Baraggan ruled Hueco Mundo; she's completely loyal to Aizen, and that's a problem. I need the Espada stocked with members who won't be loyal to Aizen, and Nelliel definitely doesn't fit the bill here..."

"Heh! Sounds to me like you're just afraid of her..." added Nnoitra.

"You would think that, wouldn't you Nnoitra? After you needed Szayel Aporro's device to get the jump on her, you're a giant fucking hypocrite. I _gave _you the means to fight Nelliel, I expect you to kill her once she recovers from that wound," Naruto said.

"Yeah, yeah, I got it..." Nnoitra said, before he dropped the three unconscious Arrancar into the chasm. They hit the sand with a remarkable thud.

"_Nelliel, what separates us is experience, not strength. I will surpass you before you recover from that wound and return to Las Noches. I'll become so great that your sword will never be able to reach me..._"

"_If Nnoitra __kills her instead of me, he'll take the fall from Aizen. Not to mention, if I make it look like I'm targeting Arrancar with an intense loyalty to Aizen, one who has no history with me, then that makes me look suspicious. Not to mention..."_

"Hey, Nnoitra! I hope you remember the details of our _deal_. I set it up so you could fight Nelliel, and you know what _I _ get out of it, right? I hope you're not thinking of double-crossing me..." he whispered the last part lowly, as some of his reiatsu began to leak out.

"Yeah, yeah I got it already. I'll be loyal to you, again. Don't worry about it..." Nnoitra said, with a handwave. Directly after that happened, an explosion of pink reiatsu occurred down below, where Nelliel and her Fracción were deposited.

After the dust and reiatsu faded, Nelliel looked a little different. Overall, she was reminiscent of a three-year old child.

"She turned into a kid?" Nnoitra said in wonder. Szayel Aporro adjusted his "glasses", looking down at the new Arrancar intently.

"Fascinating. I've never seen this phenomenon before. Perhaps her reiatsu flowed out from her broken mask, making her spiritual form shrink in size... or,"

"Who cares how it happened!" Nnoitra cackled, as he stared down at the child. "You're pathetic, Nelliel! That body suits you perfectly!" he said, before the happiness faded from his tone.

"It looks like our blades will never clash again. That's the only bad thing about this, Nelliel..."

Nnoitra took his leave at that moment, Szayel Aporro following directly behind him. Naruto watched them go for a little while longer, before he turned to watch the three Arrancar down there for a little longer.

He sat on one of the pillars of Las Noches, contemplating how his plan worked out.

"It looks like I won't have to have Nnoitra kill you after all. With that new body down there, you're as good as dead. You'll be in no shape to reclaim your position as the Tercera, Nelliel, and even if you did, I will have already transcended your complete potential..." he noted, before he hopped off the pillar and returned to the main foyer of Las Noches.

Down at the base of Las Noches, the child that was once Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck fluttered open her eyes, her memory shredded and forgotten of the recent trauma.

"Where am I?" she squeaked in a childish, toddler voice, as she looked around and spotted the two other Arrancar she had fallen down with.

"Who're you two?" she asked.

"Did she lose her memories?" Pesche wondered, as Dondochakka gasped right beside him. The little girl muttered "My head hurts" and Dondochakka couldn't handle it anymore.

"P-Pesche..." he exclaimed, reaching out a hand like he wanted to touch the child.

"Don't panic, Dondochakka..." Pesche whispered. "There's only one path that we can take now. Nel-sama... Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck-sama is dead. With her mask broken, her powers robbed, and her memories lost... she is dead. The person in front of us is no longer Nel-sama. Therefore... Therefore, we must protect her!" he continued. Dondochakka looked at him in wonder.

"Nel-sama hated fighting, so in a way, we're going to give her the life she always wished her. We'll protect her from pain, from hardship, and all other types of suffering. We'll protect her now that she's weak, even if it costs us our lives! Protect her..." he trailed off, before his voice gained another air of confidence.

"... Protect her from Nnoitra Gilga... And Szayel Aporro Granz... And," he trailed off again, as tears began pouring from his maskless eyes. Dondochakka looked at him in concern, as Pesche grit his teeth.

"... And Naruto Uzumaki."

* * *

Okay, everyone. I have a very special announcement to make now that the Chapter is finished. Because of the larger role the Espada play in the story now, and the differences in ranks from canon, I will be putting a reference guide to the Espada at the end of every single chapter. If you ever find yourself getting confused on where someone ranks, so head to the ending author's note and check there.

**The Espada before**** Nelliel's Induction**

1st: Naruto Uzumaki

2nd: Baraggan Louisenbairn

3rd: Tia Harribel

4th: Ulquiorra Cifer

5th: Unknown

6th: Unknown

7th: Unknown

8th: Nnoitra Gilga

9th: Grimmjow Jeagerjaquez

10th: Szayel Aporro Granz

**The Espada after Nelliel's induction**

1st: Naruto Uzumaki

2nd: Baraggan Louisenbairn

3rd: Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck

4th: Tia Harribel

5th: Ulquiorra Cifer

6th: Unknown

7th: Unknown

8th: Unknown

9th: Nnoitra Gilga

10th: Grimmjow Jeagerjaquez

Hopefully, this will help.

So without further ado, please review. And that's all I have to say for now.

_**Alban55**_


	37. Zorro y Fresa

**SalemtheSpeakerofTruth**: No, Hierro can resist all sorts of attacks, but it's not perfect. A good enough swordsman can easily penetrate it and wound the Arrancar that has it, otherwise the Arrancar would be invincible. I would say Aizen is definitely a strong enough swordsman, seeing as how he cut down Harribel so easily.

Another update. Hopefully this one was quick enough for the lot of you.

* * *

Chapter 37: Zorro y Fresa

The Archives of Las Noches were a new feature implemented after Baraggan's kingdom had fallen, located immediately to the right of Szayel's chambers, where the Research Wing was located. It was a large room, about as long and wide as the main throne room, stacked with many shelves worth of information that had been gathered from both Soul Society and Hueco Mundo.

Most importantly, it contained Aizen's records on individual Shinigami, their strengths and weaknesses, and their combat abilities. The only Shinigami missing from the archives were the profiles of the commanders themselves.

A large monitor, product of Szayel hung in the back of the room. Armed with technology from the 12th Division's Research and Development Institute, he had easily managed to get a feed into Soul Society itself. It would've been nice if they could keep tabs a little bit earlier, but Szayel had just made his breakthrough a few years back, so they were out of luck.

Naruto sat in the large chair in front of the monitor, the file on Yamamoto Genryuusai-Shigekuni spilled out in front of him. Out of all the Shinigami in Aizen's records, the Sou-Taichou had by far the biggest profile. It was amazing how far Aizen went into detail on the guy, and Naruto mused it was most likely as a result of using his Kyouka Suigetsu.

"So that's what he has planned for the Sou-Taichou. Using an Arrancar to achieve the purpose... well I can't say I wouldn't do the same in his position. I'll have to look into this, but he'll probably create this "Wonderweiss" soon."

He folded his hands in front of him, putting Yamamoto's profile to the side. He pressed a button on the side of the monitor, watching as the screen lit up. He typed in a few codes, and the static turned into a much more vivid view of what was happening within Soul Society.

"So, after all these decades of waiting, Aizen finally decided to reveal himself. Soul Society will be on our case sooner or later..." he remarked, focusing in on Soukyoku Hill.

Aizen had just trashed these two Shinigami kids, an orange-haired one and a red-haired one. After that had happened, another one of the Captains showed up and attacked Aizen, but he was defeated almost as easily with a Kidou spell. It looked like even the Captains weren't as strong as he thought they would be. Aizen was an exception.

He heard a little bit of rumbling in the distance, and noticed that the Gillian were getting ready. On the screen, it looked like Aizen and his cohorts had gotten captured by the Shinigami.

"It would be nice if they just offed him right now, but then I wouldn't benefit from that at all..." Naruto remarked, as Aizen grinned onscreen. A column of light fell from the sky and engulfed all three rogue Captains, and a tear opened in the sky, showing all the Gillian that resided within.

"Negación. Of course that's how they would get away..." he commented, as the three Captains disappeared into Hueco Mundo with a flashy exit. They would be back here before long, all three of them. Usually there was just one of them here at any given time; this made it a little more difficult to move.

"The war's this winter. We're gonna have to make our move soon, when he's ready to attack Soul Society. He should have the Hougyoku by now; it will be a useful tool, especially if the Libro de Ciclos is accurate in its abilities. The Hougyoku is supposedly a more advanced form of the Bolas de Evolución; it should be able to power an already evolved Arrancar up."

"Even despite that, the abilities of our Arrancar are already far beyond Soul Society's expectations. Aizen is probably going to reveal them to the world this fall. I'm going to have to take care so that Soul Society gets as little information as possible on the army."

Naruto gathered up the papers on Yamamoto, and thought back to that valuable book that he had found in the bowels of his kingdom. It was one trump card that he had over Aizen, because the Lord of Las Noches didn't know about it. Which meant he had no idea about the secrets that it contained.

When it came to that knowledge, Aizen's plan to obtain the Ouken almost seemed a little laughable. He placed the file back on the shelf, before he swung the door open and entered the hall. Aizen would definitely want a meeting after this.

* * *

Kurosaki Ichigo had never felt so unlucky in his entire life.

While it was true he had managed to save Rukia and defeat her brother, Kuchiki Byakuya, things immediately went south from there. Ichigo had learned that he had been used the entire time by a Captain in the Gotei 13, so he could retrieve something that he called the Hougyoku. Which happened to be located within Rukia's body.

He had extracted the damn thing as soon as he had showed up, but it looked like he was going to be defeated when Yoruichi and another Captain whom he didn't know put a sword to his neck.

Aizen managed to turn the tables yet again though, when the Menos Grande opened a rift in Soul Society and drew him in with their Negación, pretty much making the former Captain untouchable.

He had saved Rukia's life, but in the process had gained an enemy that could threaten everything that he held dear. An enemy with a whack-job plan to merge the boundaries between Shinigami and Hollow, and ascend to a greater plane of existence.

While Ichigo and his friends rested in the Fourth Division's barracks a few days after the battle, Soul Society was now in much deeper turmoil. They had lost three Captains in an instant, an event unheard of since the Visored defection one-hundred years prior.

The Gotei 13 was in need of promotions, and it was in need of promotions fast. But, with the Central 46 dead at the hands of Aizen, there was a massive void in the power that made decisions around Seireitei difficult.

"Shit, what happens now?" Ichigo asked himself, as he lay awake in his personal bed in the infirmary. Soul Society would probably send them back in a few days after everyone had recovered, but then there was the matter of Aizen. Things probably weren't going to work out so easily in his favor.

"Yo, I see you're up early today..." came a cool voice from outside the window. Ichigo grunted, the voice bringing him out of his thoughts. The orange-haired teenager turned towards the window, where Kakashi was standing on the windowsill.

"Kakashi..." Ichigo said in acknowledgement. The silver-haired shinobi turned Shinigami had been one of the first opponents Ichigo had to face within Soul Society. The ryoka boy had fought the 3rd Seat of the Fifth Division directly after his fight with Ikkaku. Kakashi's proficient usage of Kidou had kept Ichigo at a disadvantage the entire fight, but he managed to come out on top after he had gathered up enough willpower to eliminate fear from his strikes.

The silver-haired Shinigami opened up his robes, showing a multitude of bandages across his chest and abdomen.

"You really did a number on us back there. I don't think I've ever seen a single Shinigami defeat so many strong opponents in such a short period of time. The Sou-Taichou will definitely want to keep tabs on your growth now, especially with the whole fiasco with Aizen. I think you'll become a valuable ally in the long-run..." he explained.

"With three Captains gone rogue, Seireitei is in a weaker condition than it has ever been before. Aizen must take a full year in awakening the Hougyoku before he can use it, which means we have only a year to prepare for his attack. We have time, but it's not much. What we need to focus on now is filling the positions missing after Aizen's defection, and continue to harness the abilities of our allies."

"So, what do you want me to do about it?"

"I'm not supposed to tell you this, but it looks like you'll be getting in contact with us sooner rather than later. Although, whether Aizen's goons get to you sooner is another matter."

Kakashi leapt into the room, tired of standing on the windowsill.

"The Captains are holding a meeting right now as we speak. I believe the subject matter has something to do will the promotion of several Shinigami to Captains, but you'll inevitably be brought up in their conversation," he said. Ichigo looked at him funnily, like he didn't understand why.

Meanwhile, the meeting between the ten remaining Captains of Soul Society had just gone underway. Yamamoto banged his staff against the ground, calling to attention the group. He looked less than happy.

"With the defection of Fifth Division Captain Aizen Sousuke, as well as Third Division Captain Ichimaru Gin and Ninth Division Captain Tousen Kaname, the Gotei 13 is in a critical state. With the Hougyoku at his disposal, Aizen Sousuke has become the greatest threat to both Soul Society and the human world. We must take immediate action if we are to purge this menace..." The Captain-Commander gave pause.

"The first order in business is the replacement of the three Captains that have betrayed Soul Society. With the Central 46 effectively out of commission, I will be the one to oversee the promotion process alongside two other Captains." He opened his eyes, and looked at them all intently.

"If any one of you has any recommendations, please let me know immediately..." he said, as the Captains contemplated the decision amongst themselves. A few of them already knew who they were going to pick.

* * *

_Several months later..._

Minato walked around the Seireitei in a slump, his duties for the day already finished. Being both the Vice-Captain and the acting Captain meant double the work load, and he couldn't ask anyone else to take it off his hands. The rest of the squad was understandably bummed out ever since Captain Aizen's defection, most notably Fourth Seat Hinamori.

"Good evening, Namikaze-fukutaichou!" greeted two female Shinigami in his division who were lounging in the street. They were carrying a couple brooms, but it was obvious that they were slacking off.

"Yeah..." he said, too tired to even scold them. He seemed to do that a lot these days, with his increased workload and the fact that his kids had recently left the house.

It couldn't be helped; they were physically twenty-one years old now, and they had been accepted into THAT division. Their parents couldn't have been more proud.

After a few more minutes of walking, he turned a corner which led to the Fifth Division's barracks. He opened the sliding door gently, careful not to disturb anyone who was already asleep. A few Shinigami were running around doing chores, and they didn't even bother to stop and greet him. Not that it mattered, of course.

His office was at the end of the hallway, which he had renovated ever since the Captain had left. He sort of liked his old one better, but he couldn't really complain.

In his hands he held a stack of paperwork, the product of a full day's work when it came to be a Vice-Captain. He clutched the doorknob and turned it lightly, and before he entered the room he was well aware of the presence.

However, it wasn't the vastly powerful Hollow or a Captain as one might expect to be present in a room such as this. Rather, it was a random, faceless Shinigami that was in the room. He wasn't even a seated officer, and overall his features just seemed kind of forgettable.

He was here to deliver a message to Minato, though. The nameless, faceless Shinigami bowed to the Fifth Division's Vice-Captain, getting onto one knee and producing a message.

"Congratulations, Namikaze-fukutaichou. The test results for the Captain's trial have come in, and you have been accepted as the new Captain of the Fifth Division... All you must do now is attend the initiation ceremony in order to make it official." he said.

Minato's face split into a wide grin, and the Vice-Captain turned Captain enthusiastically walked forward and clapped his hands against the messenger's shoulders. The messenger looked a little bothered and disgruntled from the sudden contact, but he didn't say anything.

"Thank you! I've been waiting to hear the news on that for weeks now. I mean it, thank you! This is wonderful news, being a Captain will undoubtedly be an amazing experience..." he said, his voice a little flustered. The other Shinigami nodded frantically, his eyes wide with bewilderment as Minato's joy washed over him. The blonde Shinigami removed his hands, and threw his paperwork to the side carefully. He then rushed out of the open door, presumably to tell the world the news.

He rushed down the street in a spasm, eager to find his wife. As he rushed through the Third Division's barracks, several Shinigami called out to him to stop. Yet he only waved brightly at them and continued to run.

"Kushina!" he shouted as he barged into her office. The red-haired woman turned to him and smirked, and Minato's eyes widened in surprise as he noticed the haori clutched in her hands.

* * *

Naruto clutched a memo as he walked through the halls of Las Noches. He punched the head off of a random Arrancar without even looking up from the paper. The shock on the figure's face didn't disappear, even in death.

"So, Baraggan's been demoted to Tercera, has he? Who in the hell is this Starrk kid, and how do I know if he has what it takes to be the Segunda?" he asked himself, crunching the paper in his hand.

"So, Yammy has taken the spot of the Décima I guess? I've heard his first mission was to be sent to the human world to check up on some Shinigami kid?" he pondered, as his eyes narrowed when he read something on the paper. Apparently they had been sent to some place called Karakura Town, which apparently was some kind of special spiritually-aware city in the human world.

"The hell? Cero Espada? _Him_? You've gotta be fucking kidding me. Maybe Aizen just gave him the spot to satisfy his ego; he's not the type of Arrancar who would accept anything less than the "strongest" position. Although, Cero Espada is rather fitting for an Arrancar like him. It means he's nothing after all. I'll make sure to dissolve that ridiculous rank when I regain control."

Speaking of that mission of his, Ulquiorra and Yammy were due back to Las Noches right now. That was the purpose of him being called over to the general Arrancar meeting hall. It could be an important finding.

He opened the door to the meeting hall; it was dark inside as usual. Despite all that, it didn't mean that the room was completely vacant or anything. In fact, he could already sense no less than twenty other presences in there, from both Espada and non-Espada Arrancar.

"Welcome... Naruto," Aizen's voice rang out from the back of the room. Even though he should've gotten used to it by now, it still had an infuriating tone to it.

Naruto grunted in response, the surly Arrancar going to the opposite end of the room from Aizen and sitting down next to one of Grimmjow's Fracción and Grimmjow himself. Now the only Arrancar yet to arrive were Ulquiorra and Yammy themselves.

Never mind, here they were now. The door had closed as soon as it had opened, and the two Arrancar took the spotlight in the center of the room, away from all the other Arrancar on the side.

"Welcome back... Ulquiorra... Yammy. Please, tell us your findings here... in front of your twenty brothers and sisters." Aizen said smoothly.

"Yes, Aizen-sama..." Ulquiorra said. Naruto repressed the urge to whistle, and then scratched his blood red whisker marks. Ulquiorra had really gotten that whole loyal minion voice down; it was pretty convincing.

No one even flinched as Ulquiorra plucked out his left eye from its socket, holding it at arm's length and crushing it as if it were glass. A nifty little trick he had picked up from his masked days. Naruto looked around, the other Arrancar were really soaking in the information. The fox Arrancar rubbed his pointed mask fox ears, before he too closed his eyes.

There were a few humans that had tried their luck against Yammy after he had used Gonzui, but they were cleaned up so easily it wasn't even funny. Honestly, Yammy smacked him _once_... and it broke the kid's weird arm in two. Then the orange-haired girl attempted to use some fly... thing on Yammy, which was crushed without a second thought. She fell to pieces after that.

But after this... the orange-haired kid showed up. The same one he had seen when he was viewing Soul Society, where he along with the red-haired one had gotten destroyed by Aizen himself.

He watched as the orange-haired kid he had seen before clashed swords with the two Espada. He seemed to be beating Yammy at first, before something happened to him and he lost it completely. Yammy took advantage of this and kicked the kid's ass.

After that, opponents Naruto wasn't expecting showed up out of the woodwork. Urahara Kisure and Shihouin Yoruichi, to be exact. Yoruichi then took Yammy to town, completely overwhelming him while Urahara also joined in the fray a little. Ulquiorra retreated into Hueco Mundo after that, effectively saving Yammy any further humiliation.

"I see. So the reason you chose not to kill him was because you felt he was worthless?" Aizen guessed. Ulquiorra nodded, his left eye growing back in its place.

"Yes. It is impossible that this child would not stand in the way of our goals, and it would be a waste of time to bother ourselves further with him. In addition to that..." Ulquiorra was cut off.

"Don't give me that shit!"

Naruto looked over to the right, where Grimmjow was sitting a few seats away. It figured that he would be the one to speak up in this kind of situation.

"If I ran into such a weak shit like that, I would've killed him in one attack. No matter how much a piece of garbage he was, the word "kill" appeared in your orders, didn't it? That means you should've killed him without hesitation!"

"I agree! This applies to any enemy. Even if there is no value in killing them, there certainly is no value in letting them live as well..." piped up Shawlong.

"More importantly... Yammy! You got your ass kicked, didn't you? "He wasn't worth killing" my ass. More like "I failed to kill him"... " he commented.

"Grimmjow, you bastard. The one that beat me up was the black woman and the sandal guy..." he mumbled. Grimmjow scoffed at him, continuing to talk trash at the Décima.

"And I'm saying I would've taken them all out with a single attack!" he retorted. Ulquiorra was the one who spoke up next.

"Grimmjow... do you understand what I'm saying when that boy is of no consequence to us. The orders Aizen-sama gave had nothing to do with his current ability. Rather, it is his growth rate that is truly frightening. There is also a possibility that we could bring him over to our side if the imbalance in his power continues. That is why we did not kill him."

"And what happens if we _can't_ bring him over to our side, huh? What are you going to do then?" Grimmjow asked forcefully.

"Then I will personally deal with him myself..." Ulquiorra finished. Grimmjow looked a little taken aback, before he grumbled to himself and sat down. Naruto couldn't help but agree with Grimmjow.

Ulquiorra was obviously just trying to remain within Aizen's graces for the time being, but the fact of the matter was that Naruto didn't feel the need to _have_ this Shinigami on his side. Any Shinigami or anything affiliated with the Shinigami was not welcome in his forces, and this kid could become a thorn in his side later.

Aizen droned on a little longer about trusting Ulquiorra's judgement, something Naruto didn't really pay attention to in the slightest. In fact, he barely even registered that he had been dismissed. He caught a shock of blue hair disappear out the doorway, before he grinned maniacally, and used Sonido to catch up to the retreating Arrancar.

"Grimmjow, stop right there. I know what you plan on doing..." he said.

"Naruto?" he questioned, before the blue-haired Arrancar scoffed. "Don't try to stop me. I'm going to the human world right away to take out that little shit, as well as anyone else that might get in our way." He turned to walk away. Naruto put a hand on his shoulder and grinned.

"I know. I'm joining you."

Later that evening, Grimmjow assembled in the human world with all five of his Fracción. The Gargantas closed soundly as they stepped out into the darkness, eager to get into a fight. Shawlong, Edrad, Nakeem, Yylfordt, and Di Roy. Most of them were competent Arrancars in their own right, and they were some of the oldest Arrancar living in Las Noches, barring the Privaron and some of the current Espada. They had been with Grimmjow with a long time, even before they had joined the Reino Animal.

"Were you followed?" he asked.

"Of course not. Although, when I came here, I couldn't help but notice some very powerful reiatsu. Ulquiorra failed to include them in his report, so they're entirely new threats..." Shawlong explained.

"Use your Pesquisa. Naruto should be here any sec now," he said, before his five Fracción blanched at the thought of the Primera coming to aid them. Those Shinigami wouldn't know what hit them.

The Fracción and the Espada opened up their Pesquisa, sensing the entire town for powerful reiatsu. Many, many signature showed up in their radar, far more than what Ulquiorra had described.

"There are way more. They might've called into Soul Society and gotten some back-up as well. We've got our work cut out for us; killing them would've been the best course of action," Grimmjow said, scratching the back of his head.

"All of you. Let's go, don't bother distinguishing one reiatsu from another... and most importantly, don't hold back," he said. As soon as he finished that sentence, another Garganta opened in the skies above Karakura Town.

From the depths of the void, out stopped the blonde Primera himself. His mood and expression were similar to Grimmjow's current one, meaning that anything could basically set off his temper at this point.

It had been quite some time since he had set foot in the human world, and it just never seemed as comfortable as Hueco Mundo did. He glared in front of him, and Grimmjow's Fracción took the hint immediately. He did not want them anywhere near him for the time being.

When he had shushed the Fracción to a comfortable distance away, he walked up to Grimmjow in mid-air, the reiatsu levitation keeping him afloat. The other Espada acknowledged his presence with a quick nod.

"Have you found them?" he asked Grimmjow. The Primera Espada clenched his fists, before he rubbed his knuckles against his red whisker marks that he had for an estigma.

"Of course. There are several more than what Ulquiorra included in his report; we were just about to go kill them all. It doesn't matter if they have even the slightest amount of reiatsu; we're gonna kill them!"

Naruto found himself agreeing with Grimmjow. He didn't know how many reiatsus down there were from strong Shinigami, or from just spiritually aware humans. He supposed it didn't really matter though. They were all going to die.

"_It won't do at all if the humans somehow find a way to fight against me. Though, he it looks like a few of them have already found ways to fight against both us and the Shinigami..."_

"That orange boy will likely be coming, and he will likely want to fight the strongest opponent here. I assume that you can handle him easily, and I don't need to step in..." Naruto asked.

Grimmjow scoffed.

"Of course, that weak Shinigami will be no match for me even unreleased. I'll mop him up real quick and get back to business; you don't have to even move a muscle in this fight!"

"Is that so? Well, I'll make sure to watch your men closely, because I'm gonna need as many strong Arrancar as possible prepared for this winter. I assume you're game?" Naruto asked.

"Obviously. You know as well as everyone else does that I despise serving Aizen. The question is when do we make our move?" he asked, the taller Arrancar staring down suspiciously at Naruto.

"Aizen has just started gaining control of the Hougyoku, and we'll want to wait until it is completely awakened before we make our move. Aizen claims he can make it work before the winter war, so I assume that is when we'll strike. Until now, keep the operation under wraps. Don't even tell your own Fracción..." Naruto whispered.

Grimmjow gave a feline grin, his wild face and turquiose markings giving him the perfect visage of a jungle cat. He laughed wildly, the teeth of his Arrancar mask moving along with him.

"But before that, we need to focus on the task at hand..." he muttered, before he turned to look at his loyal Fracción who had given him the moniker of king so long ago.

"Alright, guys! You ready to go get 'em?" he asked rhetorically, as Grimmjow's five Fracción all took on predatory grins such as the one on their master's face.

"There are a lot of Shinigami down there, so let's go! I don't want you to let even one of them get away!" he shouted, as the Fracción rushed into battle.

Down in the main part of Karakura Town, many Shinigami had their senses go haywire as they sensed the strong reiatsu coming from the skies.

* * *

So, we're sort of getting into canon Bleach now, except with Naruto's presence. Obviously, I won't have this sort of thing be permanent, but it will be following the canon story for a while. To where, well. . . you'll just have to wait and see.

As always, please review.

**Translations and Other Features**

Ouken: King's Key

**The Espada as of the canon storyline  
**

1st: Naruto Uzumaki

2nd: Coyote Starrk

3rd: Baraggan Louisenbairn

4th: Tia Harribel

5th: Ulquiorra Cifer

6th: Nnoitra Gilga

7th: Grimmjow Jeagerjaquez

8th: Zommari Rureaux

9th: Szayel Aporro Granz

10th: Yammy Riyalgo

That's all for now, so see you next time.

_**Alban55**_


	38. Queme La Trepadora

Oh man, things come become so much easier when you're pretty much just following canon so closely in your story. But despite the fact that it's so much easier, I **_hate_ **it. Why? Well, it just so happens I have to keep the damn manga next to me as a reference guide so I don't fuck up anything that was supposed to be different. I'd much rather just go where my muse tells me to, but. . . sigh. This is necessary for build-up.

Well, with this entry into the Arrancar/Hueco Mundo arc underway, we've entered the third-to-last arc of the entire story. Oh, but don't think for a second that we're anywhere near finished. Of course not. I'd say the beginning of the last Chapter was the halfway point, and that's just a rough estimate. I already know how I'm going to end this and pretty much how I'm going to get there, but how long it's going to take I don't know.

* * *

Chapter 38: Queme La Trepadora

There was one group of Shinigami sent to protect Karakura Town during its time of need. In order to fight the Arrancar that would inevitably be sent there by Aizen, they were the most specialized group of anti-Arrancar Shinigami in Soul Society. Supposedly.

What actually happened was Abarai Renji and Kuchiki Rukia simply picking people they knew and were close to, creating a hilarious mish-mash of personalities and fighting abilities.

In addition to Abarai Renji and Kuchiki Rukia, there were five other Shinigami present to bring the total up to seven. Madarame Ikkaku and Ayasegawa Yumichika of the Eleventh Division, Tenth Division Vice-Captain Matsumoto Rangiku, Eighth Division Third Seat Nara Shikamaru, and the newly promoted Fifth Division Vice-Captain Hatake Kakashi. All of these Shinigami were being led by the Tenth Division's Captain, Hitsugaya Toushirou.

After a particularly stupid incident where all of these strange Shinigami showed up masquerading as normal high school students, they needed a place to stay afterwards.

All seven of them were scattered around a general area, staying with humans that they had managed to hook up a stay with. While they waited for a signal, they simply went along with their daily lives. They ate, they helped out with chores for their hosts, but some of them simply sat on the roof, contemplating the upcoming war and the Arrancar that they'd be fighting against.

While Matsumoto ate, Ikkaku contemplated an onigiri, Hitsugaya sat on a roof, and Kakashi, Shikamaru, and Renji did chores for the Urahara Shop, a number of strong reiatsus radiated throughout the town.

Ichigo's eyes widened as he felt the familiar type of reiatsu. Rukia was already on her spirit phone, trying to receive the coordinates of all the signatures, but to no avail.

"_It's them..._" he thought, thinking back to when he fought those two Arrancar the other day. The fight had left a nasty imprint on his behavior, seeing as how he had almost lost control to the thing inside him back then.

"Two... no seven! There's so many of them!" the female Shinigami shouted.

"Are they headed our way?" Ichigo asked frantically.

All throughout the town, the assigned Shinigami all shed their gigai to emerge into their real forms. Hitsugaya was the quickest to react, shedding his gigai in a few seconds flat. Matsumoto emerged on the rooftop a few seconds later.

"Where is Inoue?" asked the young Captain.

"She's tired, so she shouldn't interfere with the fight at this rate. I left my gigai there with here though..."

"No... it looks like they're going somewhere, but they aren't headed our way..." Rukia paused for a moment, as she noticed a pattern on her phone. "They're spreading out in all directions, like they're going for anyone with even the slightest amount of reiatsu. No matter how small it is, these Arrancar are going to kill them!" she finished.

Ichigo shed his human body quickly, coming out in his Shinigami form and grabbing the hilt of his Zanpakutou.

"Ishida should have no spirit power right now, but what about Chad and Inoue?"

"Inoue has Hitsugaya-taichou and Matsumoto-fuku-taichou backing her up. About Chad though... one's heading for him right now. And he doesn't have anyone protecting him!" Rukia shouted. Ichigo's eyes widened, and he shot out into the night.

Hitsugaya and Matsumoto both stood at the ready within their true, Shinigami bodies, the younger of the two holding the hilt of his Zanpakutou similarly to Ichigo.

A flash, and then there were two Arrancar standing in mid-air directly above Inoue Orihime's rooftop. One was a stout, fat Arrancar with a black bowl-cut, and a mask covering the complete right half of his face. The other was a taller, skinnier Arrancar with a more angular face and braided black hair. His mask covered the upper-left portion of his face, with a long spike sticking out of the top of his head to the right.

Their names were Shawlong Kufang and Nakeem Greendina, two Fracción underneath Grimmjow's control.

"Good evening..." remarked Shawlong politely, before the Fracción used Sonido to get the jump on Hitsugaya.

"I am the Undécimo Arrancar, Shawlong..." he greeted, as Hitsugaya blocked his blade.

"I am the Tenth Division Captain, Hitsugaya Toushirou..." he retorted. The two broke the contact their blades had made, and stood at a distance between each other. The stared each other down for a good period of time, before they both charged up their reiatsu. With Hitsugaya's power limited at 20% percent, it could be a difficult fight.

Up in the sky, Naruto watched Shawlong and Nakeem establish contact with the enemy. He narrowed his eyes as Shawlong clashed swords with a Captain of all things. He looked at Grimmjow, before he said something to the fellow Espada.

"Go fight whoever the hell you want. But, don't do anything stupid. You can introduce yourself, but don't tell anything about the Espada or the fact that I'm planning something. We need things to remain under wraps for the time being..." Naruto remarked. Grimmjow looked at him oddly.

"Whatever... I don't care about that, anyway," he said.

"Good, I'll leave them to you then. I've got something to take care of, so I won't be able to join the fight just yet. No one here should be a match for you anyway..." Naruto said.

Before Grimmjow could respond to him, Naruto had flashed away. With one simple burst of Sonido, he landed on Inoue's balcony and concealed his presence, in a safe place where he could watch Hitsugaya's and Shawlong's battle.

Meanwhile, Chad rushed through the lower part of town, eager to join and battle and help out. His breath caught in his throat as a hand shot out and almost impaled him straight through the heart.

It would've too, if another hand didn't grab it before it could do any damage.

"My, oh my. That was a little dangerous there, don't you think?" asked a smooth male voice as he gripped the attacking Arrancar's hand tightly, preventing him from pulling it back.

A masked Shinigami stood in front of Chad, putting himself between the human and the Arrancar. Chad's eyes widened and he clutched the area over his heart where blood began to leak.

"Chad, why don't you let us handle this?" came a lazy voice standing on the fence nearby them. Chad looked up to see a Shinigami with a pineapple hairstyle crouched on the fence, his bored expression at odds with the events that were happening.

Chad let his emotionally heightened state relax into his normal, calm one, and he nodded thoughtfully.

"Oh, I get it. I'll just leave it to you, then," he said, after a little bit of suppressed protesting. The large teenager ran away at a brisk pace, not even pausing as Rukia and Ichigo called out to him.

"Kakashi, Shikamaru-san!" Ichigo called out, as he and Rukia ran up to them. He witnessed the Arrancar with the strange mask and the bandage over his right eye, and he grasped the hilt of his Zanpakutou.

"Save it, Kurosaki. Let Kakashi handle this one; he hasn't had any serious action in quite some time. It'll be fine; Kakashi won't lose," said Shikamaru, as he fiddled with his own Zanpakutou while Kakashi drew his.

It was a normal katana, with a grey hilt and a pretty standard guard. Despite that, Kakashi wielded it with absolute ease. The Arrancar he was facing grinned deviously, giving him a crooked smile.

The Arrancar rushed forward, and Kakashi blocked his attack with his Zanpakutou. The Vice-Captain slashed vertically, catching the Arrancar's hand which managed to block it with Hierro.

"I'm Arrancar Dieciséis, Di-Roy..." he introduced. Kakashi was about to introduce himself at the Fifth Division's Vice-Captain, but Di-Roy cut him off before he could finish.

"Yeah, save it. If I learned the name of everyone I was going to kill, then I'd never be able to remember any of them."

Kakashi glared at the sixteenth Arrancar, though he didn't say a single word to his adversary. Kakashi's sword and D-Roy's arm continued to push for dominance in their stalemate, but Kakashi began to push even harder.

Di-Roy gasped as the Zanpakutou broke through his Hierro. Blood began to spurt from the wound he was receiving, before the sword sliced clean through the arm, severing it and creating little more than a stump.

The arm flopped bloodily on the ground, while Di-Roy screamed in pain and clutched his bleeding stump with his remaining arm. Kakashi withdrew his blade and readied himself for another attack.

One Shunpo later, and Di-Roy was outmatched. Kakashi's speed was far too much for the deformed Arrancar, and he was speared on the end of Kakashi's sword before he could even recover from the last injury he had gotten.

"D-Damn y-you..." Di-Roy choked out as Kakashi pulled his blade out of the Arrancar's body, a fountain of blood splashing all over the place. Di-Roy's vision began to get muddy, and he tried to lift his arms so he could grab Kakashi. But to no avail, the wound was far too deep, and the sixteenth Arrancar collapsed to his knees, trying to stop the blood with his hands.

One moment later, and Di-Roy was dissolving into dust.

"It's such a shame that you didn't allow me to finish my introduction..." Kakashi said coolly, as he sheathed his Zanpakutou. Shikamaru yawned up on the wall, while Ichigo and Rukia looked at Kakashi in awe.

"He's as strong as ever..." Rukia remarked. Ichigo nodded right beside her. Kakashi sighed and adjusted his mask a little, before he turned to face his three compatriots.

"Kurosaki-san, Kuchiki-san, Shikamaru, are you-"

He was cut off as a horribly strong reiatsu fell over the area. Kakashi turned around frantically, his eyes wide, while Shikamaru, Rukia, and Ichigo stood rooted in shock, their eyes focused on something ahead.

"_What's this reiatsu. I'm gonna have to release the limit if I want to fight this!_" Kakashi said frantically in his head.

"What? I suppose Di-Roy got beaten after all, huh? Were you guys the ones that did it?" came a rough, raspy voice from over the rooftop a ways away.

A black sandal stepped on one of the panes, and Grimmjow stepped off of the roof and into the light in front of the four Shinigami. They stood there petrified, unable to comprehend that the Arrancar in front of him was the same species as the one before.

"I'm Arrancar Siete... Grimmjow! Nice to meet ya, Shinigami..." he hissed.

* * *

"So, it looks like Di-Roy got fuckin' killed, huh? Never was much of a good fighter anyway, so whatever..." Naruto remarked as he lounged on the balcony. So far he had been watching Shawlong and Nakeem's fights intently. They were doing pretty well thus far, though granted the limiters were probably on right now anyway. His eyes widened again.

"So, they got Edrad too? Fucking useless piece of shit..." he cursed under his breath. It looked like Yylfordt had released for some reason, but he wasn't too interested in that fight.

He could everything they were saying up there, and it looked like Nakeem and Shawlong had the upper hand currently, even after Hitsugaya went into Bankai.

"Oh my god, this kid sucks..." Naruto remarked, watching the young Captain sever his icy Bankai tail in an attempt to kill Shawlong. Not to mention, the flower petals that made up the timer for his Bankai were dwindling down. Even at only twenty percent power, it was pathetic.

"Even with your abysmal combat abilities, it would just be too rude to fight a Captain without my strongest battle capabilities. That's why, before your Bankai disappears, I will exterminate you with them..."

Shawlong held his sword in front of him, and placed his fingers on the guard as if he was going to scratch it. He spread his palms out after that as his sword began to glow with yellow reiatsu.

"Snip, Tijereta!" he shouted, as he was engulfed in a pillar of his own reiatsu. When the reiatsu cloud dispersed, Shawlong was standing there in his full Resurrección. His caged mask covered the left half of his face, and his Hollow mask armor covered much of his torso and all of his arms. An insect-like tail emerged from his backside, and his hands became deadly looking pincer blades that could slice through an enemy with ease.

Shawlong smirked, as before Hitsugaya could even react, he was gored through on Shawlong's pincers, which left five deep slashes alongside the Captain's body. He gurgled up blood and coughed it, and Shawlong introduced his full name.

"Undécimo Arrancar, Shawlong Qufang... It's been a pleasure knowing you, little Captain-san." he said, as he sliced off a part of Hitsugaya's wings with his claws.

Hitsugaya stared down at his wounds in shock, trying to comprehend how this Arrancar was able to wound him so much. He was about to plummet to earth, but he held his ground, planting his levitating feet in mid-air and panting, still prepared for battle.

"Amazing... you still stand in front of me even after being confronted with my strength. As expected of a Captain. It's admirable, really..." Shawlong commented. Hitsugaya only scoffed at him.

"Shawlong Qufang... I want to ask you something. You said that you were the Undécimo Arrancar, so in other words you're the eleventh one. That means you're the eleventh best in terms of combat ability, right?"

Shawlong looked contemplative.

"No. The numbers we are given do not reflect our strength, but rather the order in which we were "born". However..." Shawlong trailed off, and Hitsugaya looked quizzical.

"That only applies to Arrancar numbered eleventh and below."

Naruto's eyes snapped open, and he narrowed his eyes at Shawlong from below on the balcony.

"Shall I explain? First, using the Hougyoku, we were transformed from Hollows into Arrancar, which consolidates our "birth". Even though there are many Hollow that have Arrancarized without the Hougyoku, we are given a number starting from eleven and going downwards."

"The Arrancar with particularly strong combat abilities and plucked out and given a number from one to ten, from strongest to weakest..."

"_Fuck, you're saying too much now..._" Naruto seethed, as he gripped the rail of the balcony. After a split-second decision, he released himself from the rail and stood rigid. He thrust his hand out in front of him, which charged with a display of orange.

"Bala Siguiendo," he muttered, as he launched a bullet of orange off into the night. It flew straight for a moment before it curved towards its intended target.

"Those chosen ten are called the Espada. They have their particular numbers tattooed somewhere on their bodies as proof. They are also given authority over all Arrancar ranked eleven and below..." he trailed off, as a lazy smirk entered his face.

"And let me make this perfectly clear. Compared to Arrancar like us, the strength of the Espada is in a whole other dimension."

Hitsugaya's eyes widened in shock.

"I'll say one last thing. Among this group of Arrancar that entered the real world, there are-" he was cut off an as orange Bala slammed into the side of his head. He yelled as the energy seared into his skin, before the Bala burst into an uncharacteristic surge of power. When the energy had cleared, Shawlong's head was missing.

The headless Arrancar then fell to the ground dead, his speech to Hitsugaya forever remaining unfinished.

"_Fucking dumbass. I was too late... he already said too damn much_," Naruto remarked, his reiatsu still finished. He sighed in anger in order to prevent lashing out, before he disappeared in Sonido back to the spot where the Garganta had opened.

"Looks like Grimmjow's about to fight. I'll have to tell 'im the newest development; I'm sure he won't mind being down one more Fracción. If the remaining two can't pull out a victory, he'll be riding solo from now on."

"Taichou!" Matsumoto shouted, as her Captain hung in the air. Hitsugaya shook himself from his daze, remembering that there were still more opponents to be fought.

"We _still_ haven't heard the signal to lift the limit, yet!" he shouted. Matsumoto lay defeated at the ground at the hands of Nakeem, who looked about ready to crush her. She was about to shake her head before her communicator buzzed with a sound. A voice was heard on the other side, and Matsumoto communicated with the Twelfth Division member on the other side.

"Taichou! Renji! Kakashi! We've been cleared to life the limit..." she shouted into her communicator.

"It's about damn time!" Renji shouted excitedly, as he unbuttoned the hem of his robe to show the Sixth Division's symbol on the inside. Over on the other side of the battlefield, Kakashi wasn't so excited. Even with the limit released, it might not be enough. Even Shikamaru had witnessed the danger that Grimmjow was, as he had drawn his sword and was readying himself.

Kakashi, Renji, and Rangiku all braced themselves for the limit release.

"Limit... Release!" they shouted.

"Hmm, it looks like they released the limit. Oh, well, it looks like Grimmjow isn't going to have any Fracción after this." Naruto remarked, feeling the reiatsu of the new and improved Shinigami.

* * *

"So?" Grimmjow asked, as he stared down the four Shinigami. The unranked, the substitute, the Third Seat, and the Vice-Captain. All of them were staring intently at Grimmjow like they would a wild animal. They needed to attack tentatively.

"I'm asking which one of you is strongest?" he asked, as he panned his eyes through the row of Shinigami. Rukia gasped, before she turned to the other three.

"Everyone, this is bad! Get out of here!" she shouted. She didn't have any time to react as Grimmjow thrust his fist directly through her chest, punching a hole in it completely.

"Yeah, I thought it wasn't you..." he remarked. He pulled his hand out and let her flop to the ground awkwardly, like nothing had happened.

"Rukia!" Ichigo shouted, as he rushed Grimmjow. Kakashi and Shikamaru stared wide-eyed as they watched their comrade get impaled, only to be brought out of their spell by Ichigo's bold move.

"Kurosaki, don't-" Shikamaru shouted, before Grimmjow flashed into existence before him. With the same tactic, and with speed that Shikamaru couldn't even react to, he was impaled in the exact same way as Rukia.

"Shikamaru! Damn it!" Kakashi cursed, as he took a swipe at Grimmjow. He grunted in surprise as Grimmjow caught the sealed blade in his bare hand, holding it as if it wasn't even sharp.

He crushed the sword in his fist, breaking it directly in half before throwing the blade away. Kakashi recoiled in surprise at the power of the Espada, before a kick to the stomach from Grimmjow sent him groggy. Kakashi flew into the wall behind him, and lay there still.

"Kakashi-san, Shikamaru-san!" Ichigo cried. The whole incident lasted no more than ten seconds, and now Ichigo was the only one left who was battle-ready.

Ichigo swung his giant butcher for a Shikai at Grimmjow, who blocked it easily with his elbow. The orange-haired Shinigami attempted to fire off a Getsuga, but it ended up backfiring into his direction instead.

Grimmjow held his arm up, looking bored at Ichigo's display.

"Hey, stop fucking around, Shinigami. I'm going easy on you right now so you can get your Bankai out. If you don't, then I'll rip a hole in you just like I did that Shinigami over there!" he shouted with a lunatic grin.

"Bastard!" he roared, before he stared at his fallen comrades, and the enemy in front of him. He didn't have a choice.

"Bankai!" Ichigo shouted, as he was covered with a black and red reiatsu, his body beginning to accommodate to the change.

"Is that _it?_"

Ichigo didn't respond, choosing instead to stab his black Bankai sword into the ground, creating a crater in the street. Grimmjow hopped out of the way of the strike, readying himself as Ichigo swiped at Grimmjow from down below.

The Séptima grabbed Tensa Zangetsu in his hand, in the same manner as he did with Kakashi. He then lurched Ichigo and threw him. The orange-haired Shinigami skidded down the street and tried to level himself, but in the end he was a couple blocks away when he had stopped.

Grimmjow Sonido'd right in front of him, and tried to catch him with a nasty left hook. The Shinigami in turn Shunpo'd away and horizontally slashed at Grimmjow. He was thwarted by Hierro yet again, and got a kick to the face for his troubles. Grimmjow then kicked the boy downwards, so that Ichigo crashed into the street due to the force.

Grimmjow sped down to the street where Ichigo lay, casually kicking him to the curb. While Ichigo was still downed, Grimmjow grabbed his collar and proceeded to punch the living daylights out of Ichigo for at least a few minutes straight.

He kicked Ichigo up, and then down again before spitting into the street from mid-air.

"Is that all there is to a Bankai?" Grimmjow mused, before a figure flashed into existence right beside him. A shock of blonde hair covered by fox ear masks gave the identity away.

"Wow, that was it? You're done already?" Naruto asked, smirking down at the beaten Shinigami in the street. Grimmjow looked to the side at him, before smiling like a lunatic.

"This kid ain't worth shit; I don't know why Aizen threw a shitfit over him..." Grimmjow commented.

"Getsuga... Tenshou!"

The two Arrancar looked down where Ichigo lay in the street, where he had charged up a powerful reiatsu attack. The red and black wave of reiryoku flew toward both Espada. Naruto flashed away on reflex; Grimmjow was unprepared for it. He shielded his arms in front of his face, and in the end he received little more than a few minor injuries.

"What? Ulquiorra didn't mention anything like that attack, Shinigami..." Grimmjow hissed as he grinned down at the young Shinigami. Ichigo was muttering something underneath his breath that neither Naruto nor Grimmjow could pick up on.

"Am I still disappointing you... _Arrancar_," Ichigo retorted. Naruto reappeared next to Grimmjow in a burst of Sonido, and Ichigo took notice of his presence for the first time.

"Who the hell are you?" he asked rudely, angry over the arrival of yet another Arrancar. Naruto raised an eyebrow at the injured boy, thinking he was probably an idiot for provoking him when he was already so injured.

"Grimmjow, why don't you go ahead and finish him off? You've already done most of the work, and this kid is beginning to piss me off. It'll be a reprieve when he's finally dead..."

"Ha! Well, isn't this great Shinigami! It seems there's finally a reason to kill you!" Grimmjow roared. He placed a hand on the hilt of his Zanpakutou, drawing it forward slowly as if to draw out the tension.

"Don't just stand there spacing out, Shinigami! It's my turn now!" His Zanpakutou was almost out of his sheath when another presence flashed itself behind Grimmjow.

Naruto's eyes narrowed, having picked up on it the second he had arrived into the real world. That fucker Tousen was here to take them back to Hueco Mundo.

"Sheathe your sword, Grimmjow." Tousen said calmly, as he managed to get the jump on Grimmjow. Grimmjow's eyes widened, and he grunted as he felt the familiar presence.

"Tousen!" He sheathed his sword. "Why the hell are you here?" he asked forcefully. Naruto glared at the ex-captain, knowing full well why he was here. He didn't say anything though.

"Do you really not understand why I'm here?" he asked. "You two take it upon yourselves to invade the Human World, mobilize five Arrancar and then lose them in battle. It was all against orders..."

"You understand, right? Aizen-sama is furious... Grimmjow... Naruto."

"We're going. Your punishment will be decided in Hueco Mundo... both of you." Tousen finished, as he opened up a Garganta to take them back to Hueco Mundo. This time it was Naruto who spoke up.

"Now, wait just a minute here. Aizen obviously sent you to bring us back, possibly by force. Just what makes you think _you_ can tell me to do anything, huh? Do you want a repeat of what happened last time, where I wiped that pretty little sense of justice of yours on my boot?" Naruto goaded, getting as close to Tousen's face as possible.

"You bastard..." Tousen muttered, cold anger creeping into his voice.

"But, whatever! I'll go back to Hueco Mundo and take this so-called "punishment" of yours. Of course, it's not like Aizen's actually going to do anything, now is he?" Naruto said, as he walked into the Garganta ahead of Tousen. Tousen glared for a few seconds longer, before he regained his peace and stepped into the Garganta. Grimmjow followed behind him.

"Wait! Where are you going?" Ichigo shouted up towards the blue-haired Arrancar.

"Shut the fuck up already... I'm going back to Hueco Mundo."

"Stop fucking with me! You come here and attack, and think you can just leave when you feel like it? Stop joking around, and get your ass back here! Our fight isn't over yet!"

"You shut the fuck up! Me leaving is the only reason you're still alive right now! That technique you have hurts you, and I know you could only get two or three more shots with that thing. And even then you're still no match for me! Don't forget my name, and pray that you don't hear it a second time. Because if you do, you're dead meat!"

Ichigo stared and stared, thinking of nothing he could say to the Espada. Grimmjow grinned psychotically, and bore a close resemblance to a jungle cat with that grin.

"Grimmjow Jeagerjaquez..."

* * *

Back in Hueco Mundo, Grimmjow and Naruto walked through the hall of Las Noches towards the throne room, where they would apparently receive their punishment for their actions.

"You really went wild back there in the real world. You even told them your name, though I assume you didn't give any information away about the Espada..." Naruto said.

Grimmjow said nothing in return.

"By the way, we ran into a little bit of a... difficulty in our trip to the Human World. One of your Fracción decided to blab important information about the Espada, and what we are. So Soul Society knows about our little group by now, even if they have no specific information about individual members. Despite that, I had to put Shawlong down before he said something important..." Naruto said. There was no hint of an apology in his voice at all.

"Whatever, I don't care. Just tell me when you're ready to move out, and I'll do my part from that point on..." Grimmjow replied.

"I'm looking forward to it..." Naruto remarked, as he opened the double doors to the throne room. Aizen was of course sitting on his throne in the center, and Tousen was off to the right. Gin was nowhere to be seen.

Ever since the three Captains had defected from Soul Society, they had undergone several appearance changes. Aizen for one slicked back his hair and ditched the glasses, and Tousen let his braids out.

The two Arrancar walked up to the throne, neither of them bowing or getting on their knees. Tousen however did bow in respect for his leader, before he turned to both rebellious Arrancar.

"Welcome back... Naruto, Grimmjow," Aizen said calmly, a small smile on his face.

"Well... do you two think you should be saying sorry for something?" Tousen asked the two Arrancar.

"Not really/Fuck you..." said Grimmjow and Naruto respectively. Naruto in particular didn't even bother looking at Tousen before cursing him out like that.

"You bastards..." Tousen began.

"It's fine, Kaname..." Aizen's voice rang out before them. "I'm not even the least bit upset... because after all, one with such a fiery spirit would take responsibility for one's own actions. Am I mistaken, Grimmjow... Naruto?" Aizen asked.

"You are..." Grimmjow said. Naruto didn't say anything. That tore it for Tousen; he grabbed the collar of Grimmjow's Arrancar vest and pulled tightly, glaring at the Arrancar.

"Aizen-sama, please give me permission to execute these two!" he shouted.

"The way I see it, you just hate me, don't you Tousen? From day one, you couldn't stand me..." Grimmjow muttered, a smirk on his face. Naruto allowed himself a small laugh at Tousen's sake.

"I have no tolerance for those who seek to cause chaos. For Aizen-sama's sake, that's all there is to it..." Tousen responded. Grimmjow shook his head.

"You never miss the chance to bring up your moral, righteous bullshit..." he mocked.

"Yes, moral justice. Something that your behavior is highly lacking in, for justice without morals is the same as senseless murder. However, murder in the name of moral justice is... " Tousen trailed off, as he drew his sword.

"... righteous," he said as he lopped off Grimmjow's left arm. He went for Naruto's directly after that, only to be halted completely by Naruto's hierro. Tousen balked as his sword failed to get through the defense, and Naruto stared at him ruthlessly. The only thing that happened was that Naruto's robe had gotten scuffed.

"Tousen... you are the biggest fucking hypocrite to ever walk this desert. Do you realize how much everyone tires of your endless "justice" preaching crap? Because they do. Honestly, in this line of work you'd be more suited being as wantonly destructive as me or Grimmjow. But instead you spout out all this nonsense about how murder is righteous and justice this and justice that. It's not righteous, and if you honestly believe that anything we're doing is righteous then you're delusional. There is no justice here, so your attitude makes me sick. When you enter Hueco Mundo, you leave all that bullshit at the fucking door. I knew a Hollow like you before, his name was Fuermos. I killed him, and the only thing that's stopping me from killing you is Aizen-_sama_. And that's another thing, you fucking piece of shit lapdog. Your bitch-ass morals have been used by Aizen and whoever for who knows how long because you're gullible enough to believe that they're leading you towards a world of justice and righteousness. All the while you talk about killing for the sake of a greater justice that everyone here is working hard to _prevent_. Suck my cock."

Naruto patted down his arm, before he shoved Tousen off of him. The former Captain recovered instantly, focusing his attention on Grimmjow's severed arm.

"Hadou #54: Haien," he cried, as a blaze of purple fire incinerated Grimmjow's arm so it could never be re-attached to him. Naruto scowled; Grimmjow was going to get demoted after that.

Afterwards, Tousen fixed him with a glare that said "I'll remember this". Grimmjow meanwhile stormed out of the throne room, his mood turning sour since he had gotten his arm chopped off.

Naruto looked up at Aizen, who was profoundly neutral to the whole thing. His speech towards Tousen had been a largely bold move, but Aizen didn't seem to mind. When his "boss" said nothing to him, he turned his back to Tousen and Aizen and walked out behind Grimmjow. He had some new business to take care of.

* * *

Later that evening, Naruto stood out in front of a very particular door in Las Noches. There were sounds of whirring and drilling going on in the inside, but these sounds were only made every once in a while, when an Espada happened to die or get demoted.

He stood out in front of the door, not even bothering to hide his reiatsu or hide in the shadows. The door slammed open forcefully as a short androgynous looking Arrancar stepped out the door, his sleeves flapping in a very flamboyant looking manner. He walked with a strut, and a smug grin was perched on his face.

His Arrancar uniform currently wasn't showing his right hip, where the number "7" had recently gotten tattooed there, showing that he was Grimmjow's replacement into the Espada. It didn't take long for him to notice Naruto standing right there.

"Hmm... what are you doing here, Naruto? Come to lament your punishment; I know you've getting demoted too after you resisted Tousen-san. You better run along now; you don't want to be seen disobeying an Espada as well..."

"_Is this idiot stupid? Why the fuck does Luppi think I'm getting demoted... Aizen doesn't give a shit about what I said to Tousen or how I acted in the human world. I'm still the damn Primera..."_

Despite the fact that his thoughts were sound, Naruto didn't say anything to Luppi despite his tirade. The new Espada took it as a sign of respect, and he held his head up high before he walked right past Naruto.

He turned back around when he heard a Zanpakutou become unsheathed. He saw the gleam of the metal as Naruto contemplated his move, before Naruto put his Zanpakutou back into its sheath. He glared at the Primera.

"What do you think you're doing, Naruto?" he asked angrily, a hand on his own Zanpakutou. Naruto had his back to the new Séptima, before he turned around to show Luppi an animalistic grin.

Luppi couldn't even react before he was impaled through the chest by Naruto's hand, blood pouring the wound as he lost the grip on his sheathed Zanpakutou. Despite that, the Espada stopped himself from falling to one knee.

Naruto laughed loudly, his euphoria stimulated by the thrill of the murder.

"Sorry, Luppi! I won't accept anyone other than Grimmjow than the Séptima Espada, so I'm afraid you're gonna have to take a little old dirt nap now. It's been nice knowing you during your _service_ as an Espada!" he shouted, as he charged up an orange Cero. He grabbed the wounded Luppi's collar, the Cero now at point-blank range.

Luppi whimpered as his eye's widened, and he looked for any possible way to escape the situation. The Cero was beginning to look a little bit big for his tastes.

Naruto sighed in pleasure, as fired the Cero. Luppi screamed in agony as the entire top half of his body was obliterated by Naruto's blast, leaving a set of white-clothed legs where Luppi once was.

"Séptima Espada my ass..." Naruto remarked, thinking about how easily Luppi went down. Even if they were six ranks apart, that display right there was simply pathetic beyond all measure. He gets into a bad situation and completely loses it.

"It makes sense though; there aren't really that many Arrancar in Las Noches who can fill even the lowest Espada position, let alone the Séptima. Luppi was probably the best Aizen had, and any future ones will likely be even weaker..."

Naruto walked away after dragging the remainder of Luppi's body away from the hallway. He would dispose of the corpse later; there were things to be done to prepare for the rebellion. He and Szayel had made a breakthrough when it came to Aizen's Shikai, and now they just had to wait until they secured a stable path to Soul Society.

* * *

Again, I really don't like just pretty much copying canon with only a few creative liberties thrown in there to differentiate it. Despite that, I'd still appreciate it if you reviewed.

**Translations and Other** **Features**

Undécimo: Eleventh

Dieciséis: Sixteen

Siete: Seven

Tijereta: Earwig

Bala Siguiendo: Following Bullet

Hadou #54: Haien: Destructive Art Fifty-Four: Abolishing Flames

**Current Espada**

1st: Naruto Uzumaki

2nd: Coyote Starrk

3rd: Baraggan Louisenbairn

4th: Tia Harribel

5th: Ulquiorra Cifer

6th: Nnoitra Gilga

7th: Vacant

8th: Zommari Rureaux

9th: Szayel Aporro Granz

10th: Yammy Riyalgo

That's all for now,

_**Alban55**_


	39. El Arrancar Desconocido

Yet another canon Chapter. I should be done with them probably by Chapter 41 or 42, but until then. . .

Now, I want to elaborate on something while we're here. For those of you who happen to read any of my other stories besides this one, you've probably noticed that I don't update them nearly as much. There's a reason for that beyond them being just plain difficult to write. Amenaza is a unique case, and I have everything I want to do planned out for this story. Despite that, Bleach is an ongoing manga, and at pretty much any point in time something could come along to ruin the outline for this story. Until it's finished, this story will always be my main project.

* * *

Chapter 39: El Arrancar Desconocido

Kurosaki Ichigo's consciousness was a very, very fragile thing to behold. While at certain times it seemed like his willpower couldn't be beaten by anyone, especially when it came to his friends, there was actually a much deeper facet to his personality than that.

When Ichigo lost, it was customary for him to fall into a deep depression. This time he had lost twice in a short period of time, and it didn't help that he had an inner Hollow constantly breathing down his neck.

He was draped across his bed, unmoving with his eyes so lidded they looked like they were closed. He moaned and groaned every once in a while, but otherwise didn't say anything. His family, Rukia, and Kon had all left him alone for the time being, so he was laying there alone, staring at his ceiling lamp.

His bandaged body ached tremendously, but he didn't give that any thought at all. All he was thinking about was how weak he was, how he had failed to protect his friends and his town from the Arrancar.

He vaguely noticed someone opening the window from the outside, but he didn't even care. The Hollow in him was acting up again; he could feel his cold presence edging ever closer to him, and the damnable grin on his face ever-present. It was going to devour him and his personality, and there wasn't a thing he could do about it.

"Whoa, you really let that last fight mess you up..." came a smooth voice from outside the window. Ichigo didn't even register the voice, considering his inner Hollow was speaking to him about something. His Hollow's voice was coming out as a garbled blur; no words were understandable.

"Leave him alone, Hatake. We're not here to comment on his condition, but rather to give him the report..." came a second voice, which seemed to hold far more authority than the voice that was apparently Kakashi's.

"Yes, Hitsugaya-taichou..." he said, as the young, white-haired Captain emerged onto the windowsill right next to Kakashi. Ichigo took note of them for the first time by looking their way.

"Toushirou... Kakashi-san..." he muttered, his voice cracked with hopelessness and depression. Kakashi sweatdropped; the gloom was beginning to rub off on him and he could practically taste it in the air.

"Well, putting your depression aside for now... there are a few things that we need to talk to you about first. Would you care to explain it to him, Hitsugaya-taichou?"

"Yeah." Hitsugaya muttered, before he looked down at his arms which were resting on his lap. Gigais were so cumbersome.

"The Arrancar... are far more powerful than we could have ever anticipated. The group that we fought the other night, there were only Gillian and Adjuchas-class Arrancar in that. No Vasto Lorde. If a simple Gillian became that much more powerful through becoming an Arrancar, then I don't know what we're going to do." the Captain trailed off, and noticed that Ichigo was at least listening to them now.

"All five of the Arrancar that we fought were killed, some in more... interesting ways. However, the one that you and Hatake were fighting returned to Hueco Mundo alive, and it seemed to be the strongest of the bunch. Hatake said that the Arrancar's name was Grimmjow, and that he was Arrancar Siete, or seven. We would like to know if you received any information on him or his abilities..."

"Honestly, I don't even know if you could call what I did a fight... I was so easily defeated that it was humiliating, and I didn't even get any information on him besides his name..." Kakashi commented. He rubbed a spot on his abdomen where Grimmjow had nearly killed him.

That seemed to be the wrong thing to say, as Ichigo slumped back down into another depression. He didn't speak to either of them for so long that Kakashi almost spoke up. Despite that, he finally answered before Kakashi managed to get something out.

"Grimmjow... Jeagerjaquez. That was his full name..." Ichigo said glumly, before he scratched the back of his hand.

"To be honest, I don't know. He defeated me so easily that I didn't gain any knowledge on his abilities or anything like that. He was a blue-haired Arrancar with an open vest, but Kakashi can tell you that. Other than that I know he fights with really strong Hakuda..."

"... I see," Hitsugaya muttered, apparently disappointed. "That only strengthens the evidence..." he remarked. Ichigo and Kakashi looked at him quizzically.

"What do you mean, Hitsugaya-taichou?" Kakashi asked.

"What I mean is that this entire war may cost us more casualties than we realize. During my fight with an Arrancar named Shawlong Qufang, I was let on to some very important information. Within Aizen's Arrancar forces, there are multiple ranks in the system. The ones that myself, Matsumoto, Abarai, and Madarame fought were all ones called "Numerós". They have numbers from eleven downwards. The Arrancar that you two fought, this "Grimmjow", is most likely among the Espada rank..."

"Espada..."

"They are the ten strongest Arrancar within Aizen's forces, ranked one to ten based on how strong or weak they are. Grimmjow Jeagerjaquez holds the rank of "Siete", meaning that he is the seventh Espada. And given how easily you two were defeated by him, these Espada are _strong_. That is why I wanted to get as much information on that Espada as possible. We need to be prepared for them, but unfortunately we have a startling lack of information on who they are or what their abilities are..."

"I see. You were relying on me to get that information..." Ichigo trailed off. The depression was back in full force, and Kakashi sweatdropped again. He himself had been beaten far easier than Ichigo, but he wasn't moping around like this. Hitsugaya sighed.

"Don't worry about it... it's just one part of this entire war. We have ten of those guys to look out for, after all, not to mention the three renegade Captains from Soul Society." Hitsugaya said, as he jumped out of the window. Before he managed to do so, Ichigo interrupted him.

"Wait, Toushirou. There was a second Arrancar there with Grimmjow after I had been defeated, and I know for a fact it wasn't any of the Arrancar you fought..."

Hitsugaya halted and Kakashi raised an eyebrow.

"Care to explain?" the masked Shinigami said. Ichigo closed his eyes and sighed, trying to remember the events of the previous night.

"It isn't much. I didn't see him until one of the rogue Captains came here to drag them back to Hueco Mundo. From my standpoint, I couldn't hear anything that he said, and his appearance was such a blur..." he trailed off, the face becoming no clearer in his head.

"Short size... blonde hair... that's all I remember about that Arrancar. He suppressed his reiatsu extraordinarily well, and he seemed keen on hiding his face from me..."

Hitsugaya mulled over that for a moment, trying to reach a suitable conclusion on the mysterious Arrancar that Ichigo had encountered after fighting Grimmjow.

"Another Espada? No, it's too early to assume that... For all we know, that Arrancar could simply be another subordinate of Jeagerjaquez' that decided not to join the battle..." he said out loud, as Kakashi and Ichigo thought over it as well.

"A very mysterious Arrancar... and unfortunately there is no real way to procure any more information on it," Hitsugaya said, before he jumped out of Ichigo's window, apparently done talking.

"We'll make sure to let you know if anything else important comes up..." Kakashi added as an afterthought, before he too jumped out of the window to leave Ichigo to his own devices.

Ichigo laid there in his best for a few more hours easily, but instead of his thoughts being plagued by depression, they were plagued by uncertainty and confusion.

He grit his teeth, and resisted the urge to punch the wall. After that, he rose to his feet and put on a jacket after grabbing his substitute Shinigami badge. He had Visoreds to find.

* * *

The orange-haired substitute Shinigami stood outside an old, abandoned warehouse, looking at it with distaste. So, they lived _here_... they didn't even have a shred of class. But, it was bizarre... there was something about this building that stood out. Everything was avoiding it... the birds, the cats, and even the ants didn't even notice it was there.

He walked into the warehouse, seeing a multitude of figures standing around at various places. Shinji, the de-facto leader of the group was hovering in mid-air in front of him. He had been the one to talk to Ichigo these past few weeks, and Ichigo had never actually met any of the other Visored besides one.

"So... it seems you've finally found our hiding place," said Shinji, as all nine Visoreds stood in the rafters or on top of boxes. It was a varied ragtag group of misfits.

"That look on your face... it looks like you've been searching for us all day, haven't you? We tried to make it as easy as possible to find us so even _you_ could locate this place, but I guess it wasn't enough. But, whatever. I guess you're determined to become one of us now... right?"

"Hell no!" Ichigo shouted at the top of his lungs, making Shinji balk and back up a little bit. Ichigo looked around, there seemed to be nine Visored in total.

"Me, become one of you guys? You've gotta be kidding me... the only thing I wanna do with you guys... is _use _you. I won't join up with you guys, but I'm sure that you can teach me how to quiet down the Hollow that's inside of me," Ichigo explained. All nine of the Visored were looking a little annoyed by now, all except for an old man off to the side who wore a calm expression.

"Well, look at you talkin' big. And what makes you think we're just gonna do that?..." Shinji challenged. Ichigo didn't look even the slightest bit perturbed, but his head was hung dangerously low.

"I'll just force you to do it, then..." he said, as he pulled out his Substitute Shinigami badge and placed it over his chest. He left his body easily and grabbed his butcher knife Zanpakutou, flashing towards Shinji.

"Oh man, you're a crazy one alright..." he muttered. Shinji's Zanpakutou laid over to the side, before he kicked it up with his foot, ready to block Ichigo.

"Wait... Shinji-kun," came a voice. Ichigo stopped his assault to notice that he had been blocked by the old man that had been sitting off to the side away from everyone else.

"I'll stop him..." he said. He was a strong old man, despite the fact that he body would suggest otherwise. He was a relatively short old man, and was dressed in just about what one would expect from someone in his advanced age. Though he was wearing this strange hat that wouldn't be out of place in the Edo period of Japan's history.

"Sarutobi Hiruzen... a pleasure to meet you..." he said, after he had pulled his Zanpakutou out of its sheathe, and flashed towards the boy, blocking Ichigo's Zanpakutou easily.

* * *

_One month later..._

Within Las Noches, Aizen was watching a very peculiar display on a hologram in front of his throne. The orange-haired girl, Inoue Orihime's power was incredibly interesting. Yammy completely obliterated that human boy's arm, and Orihime had managed to heal it like it was nothing. No, not healing. Healing was an incredibly generic power, and Captain Unohana could easily do that. This was a completely different kind of power. Her power wasn't healing.

"What is your power... girl," Aizen mused, as on the screen the strange power expanding to cover a wider area.

Within the Las Noches' archives, Naruto was watching the same display on the main monitor. The human boy with the messed up arm was healed completely by the girl, even though by all means he should be permanently without an arm.

"Well, this is one interesting power... and I think I can make use of this," he said, thinking back to how Grimmjow's arm was completely destroyed by Tousen. Yammy was getting his lost arm reattached at the moment, but with Grimmjow there was nothing to reattach. Naruto wouldn't accept anyone but him at the rank, and if he couldn't heal that arm he would be without a Séptima in the end. Was Aizen trying to slow him down or something?

Ulquorra had already told him that Aizen planned to kidnap that girl anyway, for some reason. The Hougyoku deteriorated if he used it too much, so they needed to repair. It was probably the biggest load of crap Naruto had ever heard in his life.

He shut down the monitor; the operation to capture that girl was soon. He had hoped that he would get to be the one to go capture her, but this was more Ulquiorra's forté. He could manipulate her into thinking that she had to come with them. Naruto would probably just scare her off, or he would just kill her right there.

Whatever, Aizen was creating a very special Arrancar today, so he couldn't dwell on it for long. He rose from the ornate chair he was sitting in and exited the building. The Hougyoku's chamber was right next to the archive, so he didn't have long before he reached there.

He opened the big double doors, and noticed that pretty much everyone was there already. The Espada were being called to witness the birth of a brand new Arrancar that was apparently essential to their victory.

"So, you came... Naruto," Aizen said from the center of the room, where he was standing over a bandaged figure contained in a glass box. The Hollow's arms and legs were apparently bound by Kidou, and Aizen was holding up the Hougyoku.

"How's the damned Hougyoku?" he asked. Aizen smiled.

"Fifty percent. Right on schedule, according to Soul Society, that is. Of course, there is no way to directly understand unless you're the one holding the Hougyoku. The Hougyoku was sealed away right after its development, so not even Urahara Kisuke could know about this. That by temporarily fusing with one who has at lease twice the reiatsu of a Captain-class Shinigami, it will instantaneously have the same level of power as the fully-awakened Hougyoku."

The area began to glow with a yellow light, and the glass box containing the bandaged Hollow shattered into pieces and scattered throughout the area.

"Can you tell us your name, comrade?"

Kneeling in the middle where the box once was, was a blonde child-like Arrancar with a dopey looking face. He was completely nude, allowing the Hollow hole on his sternum to be revealing. His mask fragment was a tiara-like piece on his forehead. He had purple eyes and freckles, as well as a viciously bad snaggletooth that poked out from his mouth. His Zanpakutou, which lay at his side was an Egyptian style sword that was about half the size of his own body. All in all, he looked bizarre.

"Wonderweiss... Wonderweiss Margela..." he said. His voice literally sounded like a mentally retarded child.

Naruto whistled. Aizen really did a number on this one, taking all his intelligence, perceptions, and memories, and creating an Arrancar who was effectively an autistic child. All just to counter Yamamoto Genryuusai-Shigekuni's Zanpakutou, according to the files.

He chuckled, making a few other Espada look at him in confusion.

"_I am just getting weapons of all kinds today..._"

"Ulquiorra, you remember the orders I gave you already, correct?" Aizen said, cutting Naruto out of his thoughts. The melancholic Quinta Espada hopped off his perch in the back of the room, walking up to the center of the room next to Wonderweiss. Ulquiorra then closed his eyes, and looked pensive.

"Of course..."

"Execute them. I'm giving you the power to make the command; you may take anyone you like..." Aizen said.

"Understood..."

"Oh, that's right... Why don't you come along, Grimmjow?" Aizen remarked, before he turned around to see the former Espada sitting on the highest ledge of the room. Grimmjow scowled.

Naruto frowned; he definitely wasn't going to go on this mission if he could help it. He had already seen enough of the real world for the time being, and they could definitely handle it on their own. Not to mention the fact that they had Negación on stand-by should anything go wrong.

Still... he wanted to fight that Kurosaki kid for himself. Grimmjow and Yammy had apparently gotten a shot at him... he wanted his turn. He debated with himself for a final moment, before he reached a conclusion.

"I'm going with you guys... I've been bored lately, so I'll meet you all when we open the Garganta..." Naruto mumbled to Aizen, who smirked at him as he left the room. Ulquiorra, Grimmjow, Yammy, and Wonderweiss all gathered in the center of the room, ready to discuss the details of the mission.

Three hours later, and they found Naruto standing outside the gate to the interior of Las Noches. He was looking down at the sands below, apparently reminiscing over his time as a regular Hollow.

"So, I take it we're about to get going..." he commented, looking over the four other Arrancar that had arrived. Three Espada, one former Espada, and an Arrancar that apparently had the reiatsu of an Espada. It was a solid team, one that should definitely be a big enough threat to flush Inoue Orihime out of hiding. Of course, Ulquiorra wouldn't be fighting, though. He would be off on his own, retrieving the girl while she lingered in the Dangai. No doubt as soon as their presence was announced, she would rush to the living world. That was Ulquiorra's opportunity.

"Before we go there, I have something I want to say to all of you. In our last trip to the real world, Shawlong managed to spill the beans about the existence of our group, which means it's safe to assume that Soul Society knows about the Espada by now. Despite that, Grimmjow... you're likely the only one they have only information on, even if it is likely just your name. Because of that, I want you to refrain from saying your rank, status, or even your name to any Shinigami we may fight. This mostly just applies to Yammy and myself..." Naruto said. Mixed reactions from the group. Ulquiorra and Grimmjow were stoic, because the latter was already briefed on this information. Wonderweiss groaned something in that strange high-pitched voice of his, and Yammy scratched his scalp.

"Eh, if you say so... I won't say anything..." The Décima said stupidly.

"Let us go..." Ulquiorra said simply, when Naruto was finished talking. He pressed his finger against the air, and the five Arrancar watched as a Garganta opened right before their eyes.

It closed, and exactly three minutes later it opened again in the real world. The first crack of light peered through the void, and Naruto grimaced.

"Ugh, this place makes me sick. So many humans everywhere, and it's so damn bright..." he commented, looking towards his group. Ulquiorra had already taken off in another direction in the void, which left Grimmjow, Yammy, and Wonderweiss with him.

"Alright boys, you ready to tear some Shinigami a new asshole..." he smirked, as Yammy cheered right beside him. Grimmjow was still sulking, but he looked a little more excited now that he was actually here. The Garganta opened completely, directly over a spot where most of the Shinigami reinforcements were training.

"Grimmjow... I don't want to steal your prey, but would you mind if I took the Kurosaki kid for a round this time? You can stay here and fight these guys..." Naruto said. Grimmjow glared at the Primera for a second, before he scoffed.

"Whatever, I don't care. Just leave him alive for me to kill..." he said. Naruto grinned, before he crossed his fingers behind his back.

"Can do. I'll leave these guys to you three. Looks like there are four of them down there, including a Captain..." he lied. He uncrossed his fingers before he rushed away to find Ichigo. The other three looked at each other, before they stepped out of the Garganta.

"We came out at a fun place, didn't we?" Yammy remarked, before he recieved lackluster reactions from the group. Grimmjow didn't look at him, and Wonderweiss was still spacing out.

"Hey, we're going, new guy! How long are you gonna space out?" he shouted, before he noticed that Wonderweiss was playing with a moth, trying to catch it.

"Ugh, looks like we've got another weirdo in our group..." he said.

Down below, the Shinigami who were doing Bankai training noticed the ripple in the sky, and the four Arrancar that stepped out of the void. The Arrancar versus the four Shinigami there: Hitsugaya Toushirou, Matsumoto Rangiku, Madarame Ikkaku and Ayasegawa Yumichika.

"Arrancar! No way, it's too soon. . ." Yumichika cried, stopping the Bankai training he was going through to stare up at the multitude of Arrancar. The Shinigami witnessed one go off to the side elsewhere, but he was too fast for anyone to stop him.

Yammy stretched as he walked in the sun, but he didn't have any time to do anything else as he drew his large Zanpakutou and blocked a sword attack from a Shinigami down below.

"Tenth Division Captain. . . Hitsugaya Toushirou," he introduced. Yammy was about to retort with his own introduction, before he remembered what Naruto said about that. He wisely kept his mouth shut.

Ikkaku and Yumichika both stared down the blue-haired Arrancar, not knowing what to say. The vicious grin on his face made them highly unnerved, and Ikkaku and Yumichika had already released their Zanpakutou. Rangiku was facing Wonderweiss, and looking profoundly confused on whether or not she should fight him. The limit was already released, and Hitsugaya was already in his Shikai.

He swung his dragon of ice at Yammy, bringing it back as Yammy was encased in the frozen water. That is, right before the ice cracked and Yammy burst forth from it unharmed.

"What the hell was that? It got chilly for a second. . ." he mocked. Hitsugaya grunted, even with the limit lifted he was still having trouble? Was this Arrancar an Espada or something?

"_Even with the limit lifted, it looks like I still need my Bankai_. . ." he thought to himself, as he held his sword out in front of him. Water and ice rushed into existence from his Zanpakutou.

"Bankai! Daiguren Hyourinmaru(1)!" he shouted, as he grew dragon wings of ice, and the lotus petals behind him came into existence once again. He readied himself for the fight.

Over to the side, Grimmjow hadn't even drawn against Ikkaku and Yumichika, though Yumichika was already getting worn out against the former Espada. He smacked the Fifth Seat silly without his Zanpakutou, looking bored all the while. That was, before he noticed the Captain's Bankai that was out in full force.

"Hey, Yammy. Let's switch! Let me take that kid you're fighting, and you can have these three scrubs over here!" he shouted, as he muscled Yammy out of his turf. By force.

"Grimmjow, bastard!" the Décima shouted, as he flew over to where the non-Captain Shinigami were located. They didn't really look all that strong, and Grimmjow had already messed one of them up. It was pretty disappointing. "Tch, whatever. I guess I'll just clean up the rest of this trash, here. . ."

While Yammy grappled with the others, Grimmjow surveyed his new Bankai-using opponent. A fucking kid was all what this Captain was, but he did have the luxury of a Bankai. Hitsugaya was surveying him anxiously.

"Blue hair. . . you are Grimmjow Jeagerjaquez. . . correct? The Séptima Espada. . ." Hitsugaya asked tentatively, trying to get a grasp on who his opponent was. Grimmjow smirked.

"Did Shawlong tell you that? The name is Grimmjow, but I ain't an Espada anymore. It still won't stop me from kicking your ass, even if I only have one arm. . ." he said, drawing his Zanpakutou with his single arm.

With brutalizing speed, Grimmjow flashed right in front of Hitsugaya. The young Captain balked at Grimmjow's Sonido skills, just getting his ice wings up in time to guard.

Still, Grimmjow's blade smashed against the ice, breaking off a good chunk of it. Hitsugaya tried to retaliate, but Grimmjow thrust the mid-air ice forward with his Zanpakutou, blinding the Captain and halting his attack.

Grimmjow chuckled, before he held his Zanpakutou to the side with his one arm, firing a Cero from his palm at the disoriented Captain. Hitsugaya shook the ice out of his face, before he flew to the left of the attack. He rushed forward towards his Arrancar opponent, sword at the ready.

Hitsugaya's Zanpakutou clanged against Grimmjow's as the two fought, Hitsugaya pressing the one-armed Grimmjow back with his hard, quick, and heavy strikes. Still, Grimmjow blocked every one of them, but when Hitsugaya was finished attacking, Grimmjow's arm was frozen.

"Is this all there is to a Captain-class Shinigami? Your Bankai is barely more impressive than that other Shinigami..." he taunted, shaking loose his arm from the ice, which had only frozen over superficially.

He used Sonido again, flashing out of existence and slashing off Hitsugaya's other wing completely and wounding his shoulder. Hitsugaya gasped in pain and he stumbled in place. The young Captain then plummeted to the earth, his balance lost, and his shoulder wounded.

"Taichou!" Rangiku cried, as she began focusing her efforts on Yammy. With their Captain gone, it seemed like the Shinigami were in deep trouble.

* * *

Over on the other side of town, Ichigo rushed out of the Visored hideout after he had felt Grimmjow's reiatsu. His will and his abilities were at their peak after his month long training of how to use his Hollow in battle, and after all that was done he could keep his mask on for approximately eleven seconds before it cracked. It was better than nothing, and with his new abilities he was confident that he could beat Grimmjow.

He sped through the skies of town, rushing to wherever the reiatsu was so he could finally defeat Grimmjow in a one-on-one fight.

He ran into Naruto approximately a half-mile away from the Visored warehouse. The blonde hair... the relatively short stature... red eyes... the masked fox ears that curved underneath his eyes... and the war paint estigma. He matched the Arrancar that was there on that night.

"You! You... you were there on that night. You're the other Arrancar that was there with Grimmjow!" he shouted, as Naruto grinned at him cheekily. This kid had guts.

"Hmm, so you did notice me after all..." he mused.

"Get out of my way... I'm not interested in fighting you..." Ichigo murmured, as he drew his Zanpakutou. Naruto raised an eyebrow, before he sighed and shook his head.

"I know you're looking for Grimmjow at the moment, and he _is_ here in the human world. You're still sore from your last defeat with him, so obviously you want to fight him now. But..." he released his orange reiatsu, letting it wash all over Ichigo. The Substitute Shinigami, sweating, as he stared with shock at Naruto.

"I don't really feel like letting you pass right now... I hope that's okay..." he said sarcastically. "I think you'll find that I'm a suitable substitute for Grimmjow now." He released his reiatsu a little bit more.

"Y-You've got my attention..." Ichigo wheezed, before the orange boy charged up some black and red reiatsu.

"Bankai!" he shouted, as the familiar robe and black blade entered into view. Naruto looked at it, a little amused by how different it was from a normal Bankai.

"Oh, that's the infamous Bankai huh? The one that lost to Grimmjow so easily?" he asked.

"It can't be helped... if you're going to be Grimmjow's substitute... then I'll show _you_ how much I've changed in this past month," he said, as he placed a hand on his face. Naruto glared in confusion as reiatsu was formed near his face. Ichigo brought his hand down, and in its place a very distinctive Hollow mask appeared. It even had the black Hollow eyes so customary of their race.

Naruto's eyes widened as the mask appeared and Ichigo's reiatsu grew tremendously. It was clearly Espada level, even though he would no match for him at all.

"What did you do?" he asked, before he growled at the Shinigami turned Hollow.

"Sorry. No time to explain..." Ichigo said. His voice had gotten far more gravelly, like there was the presence of two individuals rather than just one. It also sounded Hollow-like. He flashed out of existence, the dual Bankai and Hollow mask power giving him incredible speed.

He appeared before Naruto, a Getsuga flaring on his Zanpakutou, as he released the wave of reiatsu when he was right next to Naruto. The Primera Espada back-flipped over the reiatsu, landing higher in the air than Ichigo.

He heard a whoosh of noise behind him, and sensed Ichigo standing right above him. The Visored slashed at Naruto, and Naruto's fist shot out at Ichigo. The blade made contact with the skin, but Naruto's hierro was holding strong, and Ichigo failed to injure him.

Ichigo, for all he was worth was surprised just how resilient this Arrancar was, and how even in Hollow form he was losing the advantage. Naruto's movements were smooth and fast, and there was little error in his technique.

Naruto grinned, before he used a quick Sonido to get past Ichigo quite easily. He thrust his palm out trying to impale Ichigo, but the boy redirected the force of the strike with his Zanpakutou, parrying the attack. He counterattacked with a forward stab, but Naruto bypassed it and grabbed the blade. Ichigo tried to wrestle it from Naruto's grasp, but Naruto flipped into the air, effectively hand-standing on the edge of the Zanpakutou. With his opponent bound tightly, he snapped forward with a three-hundred sixty degree hook kick from that odd position. A portion of Ichigo's mask broke off as the kick impacted the left side of his face.

The force wrestled Naruto loose from the blade, as Ichigo skidded back a distance away. Naruto flipped onto the ground, his wacky movements becoming a little too much for Ichigo to handle.

"So... what the hell did you do to yourself?" Naruto asked cockily, as the battle turned out to be easier than he expected. That last kick of his had taken off half of Ichigo's mask.

"I told you, I don't have time to explain..." Ichigo panted. While he was out of breath and injured, Naruto was unscratched and hardly out of breath. The battle was too one-sided.

"Jeez, kid. Even with that increase in your powers, you still suck this badly. Where's all that talk about how much you've improved over the past month now, huh?"

"Shut up!" Ichigo shouted.

"How does it feel, kid. Knowing that even with all the hard work you've done this past month, you're still going to lose to me. You're still going to die, because I'm going to have no mercy on you. And then while I'm at it, I'll go ahead and kill all your family and friends. Slowly. Slowly and horrifically they'll all die. . ." Naruto cackled, the grumpy mood he'd been having during his time with Aizen lifting somewhat. He was beginning to go back to his old self.

"Bastard... Don't you dare..."

"Now I know why Grimmjow hates you so much. You always have this damnable furrowed look on your face, and whenever one thing goes in your favor you get overconfident. Even though you're so _damn _weak, despite that huge pool of reiatsu you've got. It's a crime to be that weak when you have potential to be so strong, something that _needs_ to be punished..." he trailed off, before he laughed uproariously. He looked around, before he pointed at himself.

"Huh, what's that? You want me to be the one that punishes you? Well, if you insist I'll happily oblige," he shouted very loudly before he loudly. Ichigo looked at him oddly.

"Are you insane?" he asked.

"You'd better prepare yourself, kid. Because..." he moaned in ecstasy as an idea formed in his head.

"I'm gonna rip your **_fucking heart out.._**_._" he growled, like a feral animal ready to attack its prey. Ichigo suddenly looked very uncomfortable, and one could tell that even behind his mask.

Naruto's bizarre dialogue made Ichigo pause for just a second, but that was all the Primera Espada needed to exploit the opening. He used Sonido to get in his guard and directly behind him, before Ichigo could even react properly.

He grasped the Zanpakutou with his bare hand and pulled, trying to wrench it from his grasp. He wrapped his other arm around Ichigo's neck, squeezing him in a choke hold.

Ichigo gasped for breath, and Naruto spoke up.

"Seeing _your kind_ trying to imitate us Hollows make me very. . . upset. When I get upset, I have the tendency to get a _teensy-tiny_ bit violence, if you know what I mean. I haven't felt this blood-lusted in a long, long time, before I entered Aizen's service. You seem to bring out the worst in me kid, and I thank you for that. Let's make this _fun_, shall we?" he whispered. With one firm tug, Naruto wrenched the Zanpakutou from Ichigo's grasp and threw it across the sky.

Ichigo gasped in surprise as his weapon went flying over the horizon, before it got stuck in a rooftop a distance away. He tried to free himself from Naruto's grip, but since then Naruto had wrapped his free arm around Ichigo's midsection. The other one remained around his neck, choking the life out of Ichigo.

"First, let us get rid of this damn mask..." Naruto muttered, before he placed his on the side of the mask. He tugged with all might, watching the mask material crack underneath the pressure. Ichigo was howling as his reiatsu was beginning to act up. It was leaking from the opening on where Naruto was pulling on the mask.

Naruto grunted, before he lifted the mask clean off of Ichigo's face. Black and red reiatsu flowed out from Ichigo's face, and his Visored transformation became undone as his reiatsu went back to normal Bankai levels.

His face exposed, and Naruto got to look at it again.

"Ah, that's better. You have no idea how much rage seeing that mask adorn your face provided. Now that you're just a Shinigami again, my anger has diminished..." he said, before he flashed forward.

He kicked Ichigo right in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him. Ichigo plummeted towards Earth at an incredibly high velocity, so much so that he would make a wide crater when he impacted.

Naruto appeared on the ground before Ichigo did, holding his arms out like he was going to catch him. But, at the last second, Naruto instead gave him a brutal roundhouse kick straight to the head, tempered by reiatsu. It almost caved in his skull completely.

Ichigo skid down the street clumsily, made a deep skid in the road before he stopped. Naruto sauntered up to him casually, standing over him as he looked at the defeated boy. He was bruised and beaten all over; there was no way he could move about in that condition, even with Bankai.

"Tsugi no Mai... Hakuren..." came a female voice from behind him. Naruto turned around and gave an "Oh, please" look, before he dodged the oncoming blast of ice easily.

This female Shinigami he had seen at the invasion around a month ago, and she had gotten taken out super easily by Grimmjow in one strike. He flashed right next to her, and before she could react had backhanded her right across the face.

"Rukia!" Ichigo shouted, as he struggled to get up.

"Don't move!" Naruto shouted, before he flashed over to Ichigo, who was struggling to get up. He charged up an orange Cero and placed it next to Ichigo's head, creating a point-blank attack that was sure to kill him in one hit.

"It's been fun, kid; don't believe that it hasn't been. But, now it's about time for you to say nighty-night..." Naruto muttered, as Ichigo's eyes widened. His body was out of it, and wouldn't respond. Even if he was just a few kicks and a removal of his mask, Naruto's attacks were strong and just a few of them was enough to bring him down for good.

The orange lit up his face significantly, causing the Primera Espada to look considerably more evil as he was about to blast Ichigo's head into oblivion. However, before he could fire it, another Cero rushed towards Naruto's body. This one was red in color, and Naruto dodged it quickly, almost too late.

"My, my, I don't really like butting in during Shinigami fights, but... I guess it really can't be helped this time," came a voice from on top of a nearby roof. Naruto glared, and looked to the side, before his eyes widened. There was a blond-haired human carrying a Zanpakutou standing on the rooftop, but not just anyone. He had seen this human... no, Shinigami before.

"Hirako..." Ichigo whispered.

In his first attack on Konoha, this Shinigami had been called there as back-up to help fight him. It had ended in the Shinigami's loss, but Naruto had never forgot that opponent.

"You, I remember you..." Naruto said. That wasn't the response Shinji had expected from Naruto, and he narrowed his eyes at the prospective opponent.

"'Zat so... I don't remember ever seeing you before though. Who are you, Arrancar?"

Naruto shut his eyes for a moment, placing a hand on his forehand in deep thought. He finally removed it from his face, releasing his reiatsu in order to intimidate his opponent.

"No... it doesn't really matter, but I will say this. How's Konoha doing..." he said cheekily. Shinji's eyes widened as he took in the Arrancar's reiatsu, and he remembered this exact feel and the bitter taste of defeat he had gone through. The only loss he had ever suffered in his entire life.

"You... Vulpes C..." he muttered, taking on a much more serious approach. Naruto grinned and raised an eyebrow in confusion at the odd title, before remembering that Soul Society assigned codenames to Hollows.

"Vulpes C? Is that what Soul Society calls me these days? Well, whatever, it's not like I care about some stupid codename. I just hope you've gotten stronger than you were all those years ago... otherwise..." he trailed off, placing his hand on the hilt of his Zanpakutou before drawing it slowly. The silver gleam of the cutlass shined in the sun.

"**_I'm gonna kil_****_l ya..._"**

Before either combatant could move towards each other, another flash and a new presence made its way onto the battlefield before them. The figure that appeared placed its hand on Naruto's Zanpakutou, effectively sheathing it.

"Ulquiorra?" Naruto asked quizzically. Indeed, the Quinta Espada stood next to Naruto, holding back the Primera's Zanpakutou from being drawn.

"The mission is complete. We're going back; we don't Soul Society to gain any more information on us..." Ulquiorra said simply, before a golden light engulfed both Arrancar. Over where the others were fighting, a golden light dropped on those Arrancars as well. It seemed that Hitsugaya had somehow avoided being defeated by Grimmjow's last attack, as there was a multitude of ice all over the place. The reiatsu over there also indicated that Grimmjow and Hitsugaya were engaged in a fierce battle. That is, until the Negación snatched up Grimmjow and the others.

"Negación..." Ichigo whispered. Shinji glared up at the blonde and black-haired Arrancars, who were rising into the Garganta in the sky. He didn't even get to don his mask.

"It seems you've gained some kind of new power, but is this all you can achieve with it? This is the end; there is no way you can do anything now... The sun has already sunken into our grasp," Ulquiorra said cryptically, as he stared down at Ichigo from the Negación.

"Wait, Vulpes C. Were you the one who destroyed the village of Konoha one-hundred years ago?" he shouted up to the sky. Naruto smirked, and Ulquiorra looked at his leader stoically.

"That is none of your concern," he hissed cheekily, as he disappeared into the Garganta completely alongside Ulquiorra. Ichigo and Rukia stood in awe of the Arrancar, and Shinji pounded his fist onto the panes of the roof.

"Dammit!"

"Who was that, Ichigo?" asked Rukia, as she helped Ichigo to his feet. The boy had gotten very bloodied up during his fight with the Arrancar, so much that he seemed unable to move.

"I don't know... he didn't give me his name or anything. I don't even know what member of the Espada he is or even if he is a member at all. All I know is that I was no match for him..." he said sadly. He was threatening to fall back into another depression.

"A truly mysterious Arrancar..." Rukia commented. It was on all their minds.

* * *

It's a long one this time around, so hopefully you're all satisfied for a while. I've added three Chapters to this in the past week or so, and I'm beginning to get burned out. So. . . if you tell me to update soon, I think I might just have to shank you. (Just kidding)

**Translations and Other Features**

Daiguren Hyourinmaru: Crimson Lotus Ice Ring

Tsugi no Mai: Hakuren: Next Dance: White Ripple

**Current Espada**

1st: Naruto Uzumaki

2nd: Coyote Starrk

3rd: Baraggan Louisenbairn

4th: Tia Harribel

5th: Ulquiorra Cifer

6th: Nnoitra Gilga

7th: Vacant

8th: Zommari Rureaux

9th: Szayel Aporro Granz

10th: Yammy Riyalgo

That's all for now.

**_Alban55_**


	40. Fresa en Hueco Mundo

**corruptionem**: Okay, I can tell you that he'll be meeting in friends at various stages within the story. What I mean by that is that he won't be meeting the entire group all at once. In fact, he's going to meet the first one in just a few Chapters. As for his power, he's the Primera Espada, so he's definitely way stronger than the average Captain.

Okay, I'm fucking jealous. I know most people have a beta around here, but I've seen stories out there who have THREE people beta'ing for that particular story, if not for the author's entire collection. Not to mention, some of the betas for these stories are renowned writers on this site. Shit, and I've been going solo for so long. . .

Another thing that I need to mention. I think it's about time for me to get a cover for this story, but unfortunately, since my art skills are around the equivalent of a monkey smearing its own shit on a canvas, I'm gonna need help with that. So, if you're interesting in doing some fanart for me that I can use for a cover, and you're confident in your skills, hit me up in a PM. I might blow you. . .

* * *

Chapter 40: Fresa en Hueco Mundo

After his humiliating defeat at the hands of that other Arrancar that he couldn't identify, Ichigo almost fell into yet another depression. This one had the potential to be even worse than his last one, because of the sheer circumstances that accompanied it. He had trained for an entire month to control his Hollow and gain new Visored powers, but what happened in the end? Were his Visored powers _really_ worth anything? He had gotten demolished yet again, even with the boost. And the Arrancar he had been fighting didn't look at all winded in the end. Even with all the power-ups, he was still weak.

He had to be _saved_ in the end... first by Rukia, and then by Shinji. There was no greater amount of shame that Ichigo was feeling. He should be protecting them, not the other way around.

Unfortunately for him, or fortunately, he didn't have the time to be depressed. Not with what had happened right under their noses. Not with the emergency situation that had just gone down with the Shinigami team in Karakura. Ichigo had just finished healing up when that happened, and had gotten a brief report from Hitsugaya explaining the situation in full detail. As it turned out, his dear friend Inoue Orihime was currently missing.

But that couldn't be right; he had _felt_ Inoue's reiatsu this morning, and his wounds were perfectly healed. There was not a scar on him, and there was only one person who could do that in such a short period of time.

After he had groggily fallen out of his bed, the orange-haired teenager had been dragged off to Orihime's house, apparently to discuss the situation with the Captain-Commander via the Anti-Arrancar Shinigami team's communication network.

Overall, the air in the room was a deathly serious one, even after all the Shinigami on the team had gathered there. The giant screen monitor in the back of the room was still filled with static, signifying that they were not connected.

The group of Shinigami watched with bated breath as the screen finally went from static to a much more clear image, and they saw someone they weren't expecting to see behind the monitor. Or rather, two people they weren't expecting to see.

One was Ukitake Juushirou... and the other was Namikaze Minato. Hitsugaya was the first one to recover, and he looked over the two Captains, vaguely disappointed that the Captain-Commander wasn't there.

"Ukitake... and Namikaze! Where's the Sou-Taichou?" asked Hitsugaya. The others looked on in confusion, their eyes glued to the display of the two Captains on screen.

"We were asked to come in his place..." Ukitake explained. Hitsugaya looked at him suspiciously, though not because he distrusted the Captains, but because he was wary of the reason itself.

"For what reason?" he asked. Ukitake looked down for a moment.

"Because I was the last one to see Inoue Orihime... before she entered the Senkaimon on her trip to the living world..." Ukitake said, the serious nature of his words causing Ichigo and Rukia's eyes to widen.

"Judging by your reaction, I take it Inoue Orihime never appeared in the real world..." he assumed. Hitsugaya took the opportunity to nod, while Ichigo spoke up frantically.

"Where did Inoue disappear to? Do you know anything about what happened, Ukitake-san?" Ukitake closed his eyes, almost in shame of what he was about to say.

"I'll tell you our version of the story. The two guards who escorted her through the gate came back here alive, and according to their testimony... it is believed that Inoue Orihime was captured or possibly killed by the Arrancar."

Ichigo was about to yell out at Ukitake in alarm and surprise, to tell him that it was impossible, but Hitsugaya beat him to the punch.

"Stop it... nothing good will come from arguing about this matter. What I really want to know is... what are you doing here, Namikaze?" the young Captain asked, addressing the newly instated Captain of the Fifth Division.

Minato looked a lot less sombre than Ukitake or anyone in Orihime's room, but with such grave news he at least had the decency to look respectful in their presence.

"Well... Hitsugaya-taichou, I am here for a much less severe reason. As you know, the main perpetrator behind this entire incident with the Arrancar is the former Captain of the Fifth Division. And as such, most of the responsibility for the incident falls on the Third, Fifth, and Ninth Division's. I'm here to collect information on any Arrancar, particularly those in the Espada..." he explained.

"Minato-san... you're taking responsibility for this?" Ichigo piped up. Minato smirked at the boy from behind the monitor, placing a hand behind his head.

"It's not that big of a job as you might think. My responsibilities pretty much just involve compiling a list of new information on various Arrancar, as well as the three renegade Captains, and make the data presentable to the Twelfth Division. So, that after we defeat Aizen and the Arrancar, we'll be more ready for something like this should the remaining Arrancar try to retaliate," he paused for a moment, mulling over what he was about to say. Hitsugaya took the opportunity to speak.

"But unfortunately, we still have limited information on the Arrancar. We only know the name of one Espada, and his general abilities are still an unknown factor to us. While we've managed to compile a list on the standard abilities every Arrancar possesses, Arrancar have abilities that individually vary, so those figures aren't an accurate list on the capabilities of each Arrancar." Hitsugaya said, butting in on the conversation.

"So, you weren't able to get any more information, after all..." Minato said. He looked a little disappointed.

"No... the second attack on the real world just showed an Arrancar that we've already previously identified. The others hardly fought at all or defeated their opponents too swiftly. The one that I fought was the single Espada we've identified... Grimmjow Jeagerjaquez, though there's a problem with this information. Apparently, Jeagerjaquez is not even an Espada anymore, though that didn't prevent me from being unable to match him."

Ukitake and Minato's eyes widened significantly, as they stared at the Captain in disbelief. A Captain being defeated was no small feat, and to know that Aizen had several of these Arrancar...

"I see. That is... disheartening," Minato said. It truly was disheartening; they had expected to win this war fairly easily, as the Arrancar hadn't advanced much according to their calculations. With Arrancar this powerful though, this war could be won by either side.

"Excuse me, Minato-san... there's something I would like to say..." Ichigo spoke up, his fists clenched at his side. As much as he hated to admit it, he had information to report. Information on an incredibly strong Arrancar that he had fought and lost to. Orihime's situation could come a little later.

"What is it, Kurosaki-san?" Minato asked, and all eyes were focused on him.

"I fought a new Arrancar this time around... one that was incredibly strong," he stated, as he clenched his fists in anger and shame as he remembered what happened.

Minato and Ukitake looked at each other in unease.

"Really? This could change everything; what is your information on this particular Arrancar?" Ukitake piped up, voicing the question that seemed to be on everyone's mind.

"He didn't tell me his name, and he didn't tell me if he was a member of the Espada... but I've gotten the grasp of what his power is like. He's far stronger than Grimmjow is... far, far stronger. I couldn't do a thing against him, even with my newfound power..." Ichigo said.

Minato stroked his chin.

"This is a frustrating situation. Every time we get a chance to gather information on any of these Arrancar, we always come up short. It's like they're actively trying to keep themselves undercover..." Minato commented.

"They most likely are. Aizen is an intelligent man, and he knows we'll be trying to keep tabs on him and his Arrancar. He'll be sure to keep us from getting a plethora of information on any of them," Ukitake added.

"That's not all. According to a specific... ally that was there at the time, I heard a couple more things about this Arrancar, but it's so confusing... I don't know what they're supposed to mean," Ichigo said.

Now everyone was looking at him in confusion. They didn't question him on who the specific ally was, but they were curious about this new information about the Arrancar.

"What exactly did you hear?" Minato asked, a little wary of the answer for some reason. He couldn't settle this sinking feeling in his gut; he knew it was something he didn't want to hear.

"Well, I'm thinking there was some kind of previous relationship between this Arrancar and this friend of mine. They seemed to have fought before a long time ago, and I heard the Arrancar be called Vulpes C or something like that..." he explained.

Something in Minato froze at that exact moment, as the memories from around one-hundred years ago began resurfacing. The day that had been the worst day of his life, and the worst day of their life for all his friends and family. The day when Konohagakure no Sato was destroyed, and all efforts were poured forth into investigating its demise. His own former Captain and former Captain Urahara Kisuke all put forth their efforts to find the culprit behind the organized Hollow attack on Konoha. All their evidence pointed towards one single Hollow, and the guilt was all but confirmed.

The Hollow Vulpes C was thought of to be the lynchpin behind Konoha's destruction.

"Minato-kun, is that..." Ukitake said to his fellow Captain, whose eyes were downcast and blank. The Shinigami on the other side of the monitor looked confused at the sudden change in mood.

"The name "Konoha" was thrown around once; that's something I also didn't understand..." Ichigo finished tentatively, and that tore it for Naruto. He lifted his head, and stared forward with an intense flurry of anger. He was even growling a little bit. Every Shinigami on the other side of the monitor flinched and stepped backward, even if Minato's anger wasn't directed at him.

"I'll tell you what it means right now..." Minato hissed in righteous anger, all the feelings that he had for his home village coming back in full force, even long after they had been buried.

He clenched his fists at his side, so hard that his knuckles turned chalk-white, and his fingernails began to draw blood.

"The name Konoha... it is the name of the village where I was born in the real world. Geographically speaking, it and the rest of the landmass I am from is hidden from the rest of the world by something called a Genjutsu... or at least it was," he trailed off, and the others were paying rapt attention to the Fifth Division's Captain.

"Around one-hundred years ago... my home village was destroyed and its inhabitants disappeared off the face of the earth. My Captain and Urahara-san investigated the operation behind the invasion, and the Hollow at the center of the operation was purportedly Vulpes C." he said.

"To learn that this Hollow is a subordinate of Aizen's is terrible news. According to the Ninth Division's database, he is one of the most dangerous Hollows in existence, mainly for his elusiveness. He has eluded the Shinigami for almost three centuries, starting from his time as an Adjuchas. He has only been active in the real world a total of three times, not including his most recent incursion. However, his inactivity does not make him any less dangerous. His actions are always violent and worrisome. He always operates on a large scale, and after that he always go back to hiding within Hueco Mundo. Due to lack of progress on the Garganta, we have not found a way to pursue him, but if we could get into Hueco Mundo, one of the top priorities would be to bring this Hollow down."

"Minato-kun, this Hollow... if he is one of Aizen's minions..." Ukitake piped up. Minato nodded.

"Yeah, I've thought about this possibility as well. It makes the situation that much worse," Minato stated.

"What do you mean?" Ichigo asked.

"At a point sometime in the past, Vulpes C was capable of mobilizing an attack force of at least one hundred thousand Hollows for his invasion of Konoha. It's not out of the realm of possibility to assume that he still has that much power. If he is one of Aizen's minions, then he could effectively call that attack force at any given time..." Minato said grimly. Ichigo's eyes widened, and his breath caught in his throat.

"O-One hundred thousand Hollows?! That's insane... how are we supposed to fight that?!" he shouted.

"Are you serious, Namikaze?" Hitsugaya shouted, his nerves getting the best of him. Minato nodded, sparing no thought to what was at stake here.

"Now, hold up everyone. It's too early for us to say for sure whether or not Vulpes C is a subordinate of Aizen. You did not figure out that he was an Espada, correct?" Minato asked Ichigo, who nodded awkwardly.

"He could be affiliated with Aizen in a different manner. Right now, the best option is to acknowledge both Aizen and Vulpes C as separate threats." Minato finished.

"Then what are we waiting for? We need to bring this guy down, stat!" Hitsugaya said. Ukitake shook his head somberly, and Hitsugaya relented underneath the pressure.

"Field research for the Garganta is still underway, and is unfortunately making slow progress. We were planning to invade Hueco Mundo sometime within the next ten years, but with the Aizen incident, that is no longer an option. There is no possible way we can stabilize a Garganta before winter arrives..."

The conversation was about to continue in the same direction, but someone else wanted to change the subject.

"Minato-san, Ukitake-san..."

Ichigo was speaking now, and both Captains turned to look at him.

"I understand that this Hollow is very dangerous, and I understand that he needs to be brought to justice for his crime... but we're still missing our friend. I need to know more about what happened to Inoue..." Ichigo said seriously.

Ukitake's eyes widened slightly, before he looked at Minato. The former Yondaime's anger had faded completely from his visage, and he nodded at Ukitake.

"Well, we're still at the conclusion that she has either been captured or killed by the Arrancar..." Ukitake admitted. Ichigo glared lightly at him, before he stuck his arm out. The completely healed nature of the appendage threw the Shinigami for a loop, at least the ones that knew he had battled yesterday.

"Look at this. My arm was seriously injured from the battle yesterday, so badly that no one else here could heal it. When I woke up this morning, there wasn't even a scar on my arm, and I could even feel a bit of Inoue's reiatsu..." Ichigo explained. His voice was strangely calm for once.

The room fell silent, and Ukitake was staring at Ichigo in shock. This completely blew Soul Society's theory on her disappearance out of the water.

"I see... that is certainly a shame." came a new voice. Ukitake and Minato turned around, and they immediately gave clearance for Yamamoto Genryuusai-Shigekuni to lead the conversation.

"What does that mean?" asked Ichigo, as he leaned forward.

"If what you're saying is true, then it indeed means that Inoue Orihime is alive. However, at the same time it also means that she is a traitor. If she were kidnapped, then she would not have the ability to see you before she disappeared. The fact that she healed your wounds and then disappeared means that she went to Hueco Mundo of her own free will," Yamamoto said.

"That's ludi-" Ichigo began to shout, but someone stopped him. He turned around to see that Renji had placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Stop, continuing to talk will only worsen your argument. I understand, Sou-Taichou. Then I, Abarai Renji, Vice-Captain of the Sixth Division and a member of Hitsugaya-taichou's Anti-Arrancar forces will respond to this treason by heading to Hueco Mundo and bringing Inoue Orihime to her senses."

"...Denied," said the Captain-Commander, to the shock of both Ichigo and Renji.

"The Arrancar forces are already preparing for battle... I will have Hitsugaya's team return to Soul Society to prepare for the upcoming battle." he ordered.

"Does that mean you're telling us to forget about Inoue?" Rukia piped up.

"Naturally. You cannot weigh the life of one person against the fate of the world. Luckily, I made preparations in case of your resistance..." Yamamoto said, as a gate to Soul Society suddenly materialized, and from the inside came Kuchiki Byakuya and Zaraki Kenpachi. The two Captains stepped into the room, looking profoundly intimidating in the face of what was for the most part inferior Shinigami.

"Go back, all of you," Kenpachi said bluntly.

"Do not resist. We were ordered to use force if necessary..." Byakuya added.

Ichigo clenched his fists, as all the Shinigami were been corralled back to Soul Society. He grit his teeth, before he said one last thing to the Captain-Commander.

"I understand. I will not ask for Soul Society's help. Just please... tell me how to get to Hueco Mundo. Inoue's our friend... I will save her by myself..." he said. Yamamoto opened his eyes slightly, a sure sign that danger was approaching.

"... Denied," he said, again to the shock of Ichigo.

"Your strength will be of importance in the upcoming war, and as of now there is no way to get into Hueco Mundo. I will not have you be affiliated with Urahara Kisuke or anyone not allied with Soul Society who could possibly allow you into Hueco Mundo, where you will die like a dog. You will wait until you receive orders. That is all."

With those final words said, the screen faded to black, and the connection between the two worlds was cut. Ichigo clenched his fists while staring ahead, and Rukia looked at him one last time before she passed into the gate.

* * *

Naruto locked eyes with Inoue Orihime for the first time ever, as she was brought back to Las Noches, and he already knew that she was wary of him. He didn't look a day older than the sixteen-year old human girl, but just the way he carried himself set her on edge, unlike anything she had ever felt before.

To her, his existence was an ancient, soul-rending monstrosity. It basked in evil and pain, and when one was looking at him it was all directed there. Not even Aizen made Orihime feel this way, and that man had a strength-draining reiatsu.

"Welcome to our castle, Las Noches..." Aizen said from atop of his throne. Orihime still looked nervous in the presence of Aizen, even if he didn't inspire the same feeling that Naruto did.

Ulquiorra, Grimmjow, and Yammy also stood in the throne room, waiting to reap the reward that they would get from successfully completing their mission. Still, no one took as much interest in Orihime as Naruto did. He stared at her the entire time, knowing that she was going to be the trigger for the Kurosaki kid to come to Hueco Mundo.

It wasn't the fact that it was him coming to Hueco Mundo, but rather the _action_ of him coming to Hueco Mundo. He didn't like it... the Shinigami having access to their own personal dimension. That meant he would have to make sure that Kurosaki would never be able to leave, lest he figure out the secret of the Garganta.

"You are Inoue Orihime, correct?" Aizen asked rhetorically, continuing on when Orihime didn't say anything. "I'm sorry to ask you this so soon, but I would like you to demonstrate your ability right now..." he stated.

"In order to test your abilities, I'd like you to heal Grimmjow's left arm..." Aizen explained. Orihime, for all she worth walked up to Grimmjow, even despite the fact that she felt like all her power was being sucked out of her.

There was the moment Naruto was waiting for. He was giddy; he knew the human girl's power could be used for this. Grimmjow could take his place within the Espada yet again.

"_Aizen probably just got tired of me killing all the new Séptimas..._" Naruto thought, as Orihime placed her hands over where Grimmjow had gotten his arm severed. Grimmjow had the decency to look surprised as a golden aura covered his missing arm.

"Souten Kisshun... I reject," she whispered with the voice of someone who had had her will broken. Slowly but surely, Naruto's grin widened as the pieces of Grimmjow's missing arm began to come back into existence, forming an unblemished whole like it was before.

When it was all said and done, Grimmjow stood there... complete with a fresh new left arm. He flexed it and tested out its new grip on his Zanpakutou, confirming that it was just as good as it was before. Naruto grinned, time and space reversal was such a wonderful weapon to have, but he doubted he would need this girl again.

Aizen looked vaguely pleased, but Naruto knew the whole plot behind this had nothing to do with Orihime's power.

"_Too bad I switched the information in the archives a while back. Soul Society wants nothing more to do with Urahara Kisuke... so no Captains are getting here anytime soon..._"

Making Aizen look like a fool was something he enjoyed most, and since he had command of Szayel, he could easily make it look like Urahara Kisuke had gotten back into good graces with Soul Society for the upcoming war, when in reality he hadn't at all.

"Hey, woman." Grimmjow said, drawing Naruto out of his trance. "Heal this too..." he stated, pointing to a spot on his back. His Espada tattoo had been burned off completely, and new scar tissue had formed over it. But that too disappeared in the face of Orihime's power, and soon enough the jagged number "7" tattoo on his back was visible to everyone.

He chuckled to himself a little, before it turned into full blown laughter at his rank being returned to him. His jubilance was reflected on Naruto's face, who was glad that the Espada were finally completed again.

Naruto stared at Orihime again; maybe it was time for him to mess with her a little bit. He grinned psychotically, it would almost be too much fun for him to do that.

Later that evening, Orihime had gotten outfitted with her new Arrancar clothes, and was taken to her own personal cell on the other side of Las Noches. She stood there on the Middle-Eastern style rug, staring through the bars of her cell on the crescent Hueco Mundo moon.

"Such a fine moon, isn't it? It really instills a lot of _bloodlust_ within me..." Naruto's voice rang out, as the door to the cell creaked open slowly. Orihime gasped when she saw who it was, walking into the room.

"Y-You..." Orihime stuttered out, as she locked eyes with the Arrancar yet again. She backed away from him as far as she possibly could, pushing into the corner and praying that the Arrancar would go away.

"Ulquiorra's busy right now... so I figured I'd be the one to come check up on how you're doing..." he said casually, despite the fact that the girl in front of him was terrified. He thrived on fear though, and it was almost like he was draining it from her.

It took everything in her power not to throw up right there... because this Arrancar's reiatsu had a bad aura. A _very_ bad aura. Blood, pain, murder, torture... they all seemed to be reflected in the reiatsu.

"W-What are you?" Orihime managed to squeak out. Naruto grinned, and he released the force of his reiatsu. The girl buckled underneath her own weight and collapsed to the floor. She shrieked as she gasped for breath, sweat pouring down her temples. She tried to lift her head to look at Naruto, but her mind saw only a shadowy figure... a midnight black demon that had no outline. His soulless white eyes seemed to reflect nothing but a monster.

"My name's not important right now... What I am isn't important either. All that matters right now is what's going to happen in the future," Naruto said, forcibly dragging Orihime to her feet.

"Orihime-chan... you are really not worth anything," he said, once again with his casual tone of voice. He mildly noted that his reiatsu and his presence had instilled mild paralysis in the girl.

"I'll tell you this right now... don't bother trying to use your powers to destroy the Hougyoku," he said simply. Orihime's eyes widened, and she gasped in shock as the plan she had was unveiled like that.

"You poor girl... you still think Aizen needs you for that, don't you? When the Hougyoku is used excessively, it enters a state of disrepair and must be brought back to its original state, correct?" Naruto shook his head, placing his hands on Orihime's cheeks and squeezing firmly. Tears flowed from Orihime's eyes, and she wanted nothing more than to slap this Arrancar.

"Your friends will come here... to Hueco Mundo," Naruto said suddenly, changing the subject completely. Orihime's mind suddenly went blank, and she had trouble registering what he had just said.

"W-What did you say?"

Naruto grinned.

"I said... your friends will be coming here... to Hueco Mundo. You are more than enough bait to draw them here to Hueco Mundo; they will surely come here using Urahara Kisuke's Garganta," he said.

"W-Why?" she asked, hopelessly.

"To rescue you, obviously. They don't need any other reason than that to come here... However, that should mean nothing to you now; you live _here_ now, and your body and soul already belong to Aizen-sama..." Naruto spit out Aizen's honorific like it was poison. After that, Naruto looked whimsical for a second. He breathed deeply and sighed in happiness.

"That boy will be coming here, no doubt. Being his friend, I would say you definitely know his potential, am I right?" Naruto asked rhetorically. Orihime looked confused at that, and she said nothing in spite of herself.

"You don't? That's surprising; I thought someone like Kurosaki would tell his closest friends that at least. Or does he keep everything from you, guarding it like the dirty little secret it is?" he said.

"N-No... that's not..."

"He really shouldn't be ashamed of who he is. I mean sure, I was surprised when I first saw what species he _truly_ was, but in the end I started to like him more. Hmm, maybe it was because he's less of a Shinigami now? I don't know..." Naruto trailed off.

"Well, it doesn't matter at this point in time. He's dead the second he enters this place... and I will personally kill himself if he runs into me. Slowly and painfully, while he screams your name out in agony. That's the only real way to do things. It will be fun..." he said. Orihime, for all she worth managed to get a hold of herself, and she rushed forward and slapped Naruto.

All she managed to do was succeed in hurting her hand. Naruto's face remained unbudged. The grin that adorned it only got wider as Orihime cried out in pain. Luckily for her, her fingers hadn't gotten mangled.

Naruto smirked as the human girl clutched her wounded hand, before he turned around and walked out the door. He clutched the side of it, looking back at the girl who was sure to wallow in depression from this news.

"Try not to get too depressed on me... but then again, that might be fun," he said evilly, before he walked out of the door. After he left, Orihime broke down completely.

* * *

Urahara Kisuke stood outside his shop in the middle of the night, smoking his pipe peacefully. In truth, he was waiting for someone very important to arrive there.

"Welcome. I thought you'd be here by now, Kurosaki-san..." he commented, as the orange-haired Shinigami himself walked up to the Urahara Shop, clad in his Shinigami clothes.

"Why would you think that?" Ichigo asked.

"You probably thought that I was the only one who knew the way to Hueco Mundo, and... well, let's just say that you guessed correctly. I already have everything set up for your trip," he said, as he turned his back to Ichigo and gestured for him to enter the store.

As the two descended in the deeper part of the Urahara shop, the rocky area where Ichigo had begun his Shinigami training... Urahara admitted something.

"I always feared that Aizen would take interest in Inoue-san's ability... that's why I tried to have her removed from this battle. But... I didn't take her feelings into consideration, and that plan backfired spectacularly. Now..." he trailed off, as they walked through the craggy area.

"I want to assist you in any way possible..."

"You sure that's okay? It would be going against Soul Society's orders..." Ichigo said in concern.

"Well, going against Soul Society's orders is the exact reason I reside here now. Besides that, Soul Society has already wiped their hands of me for this war. They don't want anything more to do with me now. For what reason I cannot fathom..."

"That's a pretty pathetic expression you've got there, Kurosaki..." came a voice that was sitting upon a large rock overhead. Ichigo turned around, and noticed his friend and "enemy" Ishida Uryuu sitting on the rock. The same one that had helped him invade Soul Society was apparently going to help him with Hueco Mundo as well.

"Ishida... why are you here?" Ichigo asked, before he felt another presence enter his peripheral vision.

"Obviously, to enter Hueco Mundo with you, Ichigo..."

Ichigo turned around, and to his surprise he saw another of his friends. Sado Yasutora was also present in the underground of the Urahara, apparently ready to enter Hueco Mundo as well.

"We heard everything from Urahara-san... We're coming too..." he said in a voice that brooked no arguments. He looked prepared for the journey as well.

"Ishida... Chad..." Ichigo began, and the other two already knew what he was going to say. "I appreciate and understand your feelings, but it's better that I go alone on this. With your powers..." he was cut off suddenly as Chad struck the end of his Zanpakutou with his powered-up arm. Despite that, it wasn't the normal arm that Ichigo was so used to. The design on it was far different, and it packed much more of a punch that Ichigo could ever remember.

"Are you saying that even this isn't enough, Ichigo?" he said in his usual calm voice. Ishida looked on them passively, though on the internal level he agreed with Chad.

"Trust us, Ichigo. Don't force yourself to carry this heavy burden by yourself. We can all carry it with our combined strength, because that it what friends are for," explained Chad.

It seemed like those words, and the demonstration of Chad's powers finally got through to Ichigo. He frowned lightly, and looked like he still wanted to argue, but he conceded in the end when Urahara came up to them. The three young humans stood at attention, mentally preparing themselves for whatever was in store in Hueco Mundo.

"Alright then... Everybody ready?" Urahara asked.

* * *

Okay, a very dialogue ridden Chapter, but I didn't think it was half bad. If you could review for me, I would be appreciative. It was mostly canon, but I changed up a few things. For one, Urahara isn't affiliated with Soul Society during the war, like he was in canon. There might be a reason for this I'll reveal later. Who knows, you'll just have to wait and see.

**Current Espada**

1st: Naruto Uzumaki

2nd: Coyote Starrk

3rd: Baraggan Louisenbairn

4th: Tier Harribel

5th: Ulquiorra Cifer

6th: Nnoitra Gilga

7th: Grimmjow Jeagerjaquez

8th: Zommari Rureaux

9th: Szayel Aporro Granz

10th: Yammy Llargo

Peace,

_**Alban55**_


	41. Mapache y Bestías

Almost done with canon rehashing. . .

**Shameless Advertising!: **Recently, my friend Aeo15 has put up his new story for the world to see. I would appreciate it if you would and checked it out! No, don't look at me like that. . . Aeo15 happens to be my translation of all things Japanese, and having the sucktastic Japanese skills that I do, I wouldn't been able to come this far without his support. So, if you enjoy my story, know that some of the credit belongs to him, and his story isn't getting nearly enough attention as it should be. Just search up his name and read the story. It's only 1,700 words so far, and who knows, you may end up liking it.

Okay, enough about that. This Chapter deals with the Privaron Espada, mainly. But, I have taken the liberty of making a few changes to the canon formula. For instance, Dordonii and Cirucci are no longer involved here. Instead, I have some very special Privaron Espada that I think you're going to like.

* * *

Chapter 41: Mapache y Bestías

The middle of Hueco Mundo was thrown into a slight uproar as a base far away from Las Noches collapsed on itself, and a ragtag band of three teenagers surfaced, coughing up a large supply of sand. They had gotten their first taste of Hueco Mundo down there in the base, and with an easy battle they were getting pumped for the real challenge.

"Well, we got out somehow..." Ichigo voiced, as he dragged himself to his feet. The orange-haired Shinigami looked around, feeling slightly surprised by the lack of Hollow activity. Hueco Mundo was otherwise a very desolate place.

"So, this is Hueco Mundo, huh? Seems kinda lonely here, to be honest. And here I was thinking that the world of Hollows would be a pigsty..." he commented. The quartz trees and the sand dunes were the only things setting apart this area from a flat, empty landscape. There was something about this place that put Ichigo on edge though, like there was more to this place than met the eye.

Ichigo and Ishida surveyed the various qualities of the Hueco Mundo frontier, but Chad wasn't paying any attention to the scenery at all. He was busy pointing ahead at the bizarre palace that looked like it was only a short distance in front of them.

"Is that Las Noches? The one the Arrancar were talking about. It's so big, I think its throwing off my sense of distance..." Ichigo commented, as he turned around to view the palace.

"Anyway, for the time being, it's probably best to assume that Inoue is within that building somewhere..."

"It's likely... I don't know of any other place where they could hide her..." Ishida agreed, himself being unaware of the vast size of Hueco Mundo, and its many different locales.

"We should run there..." Ichigo said. Chad and Ishida nodded. The three intruders of Hueco Mundo took off running to the palace, but even when they were completely out of breath, the palace never seemed any closer. The three humans laid in the sand of Hueco Mundo, gasping and panting for breath.

A little Hollow lizard emerged from underneath the sand, and Ichigo looked at it blankly.

"Are you sure that place isn't a mirage or something?" he asked.

"Impossible. A mirage can't even exist in a place like that. Shall I explain what a mirage is? Basically-" Ishida started, before he was cut off by Ichigo yelling at him. While Ichigo yelled at Ishida, Chad clenched his fist together, seemingly focused on something that had drawn his attention away from his companions.

He put his hands toward the ground, and narrowed his eyes slightly. Ichigo and Ishida continued to ramble on, but not after a giant, eel-like Hollow emerged from underneath the sand.

Ichigo and company had the decency to look surprised, before a spotted Hollow with a tiki-mask and an ant-like Hollow also emerged from the sand. They were chasing what appeared to be a toddler in a green rag, who was crying as she desperately ran from the group of Hollow.

"A human? What's another human doing in a place like this?" Ichigo asked, as he grabbed the hilt of his Zanpakutou and drew it. The bandages unraveled and he held it out in front of him, ready to save the girl.

The others jumped into action alongside him, and a few seconds later, the three Hollows were incapacitated. They quivered in fear, but the girl they had "saved" spoke up.

"Stop! Stop it! Why awe you bullying us?" she cried, in a shaky lisp. Ichigo and the others looked bewildered as the girl that they had saved suddenly began to defend the Hollows.

"A... mask?" Ichigo questioned, as the hood fell off the girl's head to reveal a cartoonish, broken mask that rested on her scalp. A few minutes later, and all of the Hollows were on their knees.

"We're really sowwy. We neva' thought that ou' endless tag wo'od cause such a misundastanding..." the little Arrancar said. She proceeded to explain how they were playing a game of endless tag, and how she was a total masochist of all things.

"Uh-huh... yeah," Ichigo deadpanned, when it was all said and done. He had bopped the tiki-masked Hollow when she called herself a masochist, but was now content to just stand there idly.

"And you are?"

"I'm Nel! Nel Tu the Arrancar!" she said.

* * *

Naruto sheathed his Zanpakutou, feeling the new power run through him. The final stages of preparation were complete, and the Hougyoku was fully awakened.

He was standing in Szayel's wing, running through the final tests that would allow him to break Aizen's shikai. He turned to the Novena Espada, who grinned at him loftily.

"So, everything's done then?" he asked Szayel.

"Of course... that theory you had on your shinobi Genjutsu held quite a bit of water. You should be able to break Aizen-sama's illusions via a similar approach of what you did there. The hard part will be directing your reiatsu to the afflicted areas, so it's a little different than how you described Genjutsu cancellation."

"We're ready... we just need you to say the word. Though, may I ask something, Naruto?" Szayel said. Naruto nodded at him.

"That boy who invaded... will he have any bearing on the plan?"

"Sort of. I've taken an interest in him ever since I saw this new power of his in the real world, so I'm gonna go out and meet him. We can have a little fun with the intruders, and then initiate the plan. Aizen's no idiot, he knows I've been up to something since the beginning, and he'll be ready for me. He's also the only one who knows the gateway to Soul Society. We need to have that remain open... and you have to analyze and reproduce the effect for whenever we're ready for our invasion."

"That shouldn't be too hard," Szayel remarked. He strolled over to the main database, pulling up a few images on screen. The three intruders had somehow multiplied in number. There was one more Shinigami with them, as well as two Hollows and a child-like Arrancar. The group had just penetrated into the palace right now, and were in the ruinous subterranean section of it.

"Well, isn't this interesting? Our little intruders have stumbled upon someone _very_ interesting..." Szayel mused, as he smirked at the static display of the group of seven.

"Lemme see," Naruto muttered, as he muscled Szayel out of the way. He narrowed his eyes; those were unwelcome faces around these parts. He sneered.

"Is that?..." he asked. The little green-haired girl on the orange-boy's back had since gotten a haircut since they last met, but she bore a striking resemblance to the one he had cast out all those years ago.

"It's Nelliel... and her Fracción," Szayel said lightly. Naruto growled in anger, baring his vulpine teeth. This threw the plan slightly off; he would have to take care of her for real this time.

He looked at the others in the group, before he centered in on the newest arrival. His eyes widened, and his breath actually quickened. Not out of fear, but rather out of excitement. He knew that mask from anywhere. A Shinigami, with gravity-defying grey hair and a mask covering everything except one eye.

"Kakashi..." he muttered, as a lunatic smile made its way onto his face. Naruto shook in laughter, his hands grasping and scrapping against the glass of the monitor, like Naruto wanted to reach into the screen and clutch Kakashi's neck. He only struck solid glass.

"Change of plans, Szayel..." he moaned mysteriously, as he practically cracked his neck to stare back at Szayel with wide, evil eyes. Szayel felt a little intimidated by the gaze.

"There's someone down there that I want to _personally_ kill, and with Nelliel down there I'll have to take care of her, so there's a priority change. You can have the Quincy if you want, as long as it doesn't interfere with your preparations," he said.

"You have my thanks," Szayel said. The Quincy would of course make an excellent test subject, if Naruto didn't randomly go out and kill him first. You could never predict what the Primera was going to do next.

"Just one thing. If they're entering Las Noches that way, then there's only one possible destination for them to take. A very _interesting _destination..." Naruto said. He shook his head.

"They're inevitably going to pass through the Tres Cifras den," Naruto mused. He let out a sneering laugh.

"Why is this important? Do you think they'll lose there?" asked Szayel. The Privaron _were _fairly powerful, of course, but Aizen had told them to not underestimate the intruders.

"No, I imagine they'll manage to defeat the Privaron Espada without _too _much effort. But it's the Privaron Espada themselves that make this so interesting," Naruto chuckled. Szayel raised an eyebrow, but otherwise said nothing.

"Get started... We're abandoning this palace today to move towards Eastern Hueco Mundo, but we can't leave without the Hougyoku and the stabilization of the portal."

* * *

The Shinigami group had finally managed to infiltrate the palace of Las Noches after a long hike through the barren desert. They had gotten some help from Nel's pet eel Hollow, Bawabawa.

They had been attacked on the way there by this giant sand Hollow named Lunuganga, but they had been saved by a very familiar Shinigami who had managed to find his way into Hueco Mundo.

Hatake Kakashi looked bored even as he struck down the gargantuan sand Hollow. The "Great Desert Bros." as they called themselves freaked out at the sight of another Shinigami, but eventually he too traveled with the group on Bawabawa as they made their way to Las Noches.

"Rukia and Renji were prepared to come to Hueco Mundo after you, but I convinced them to return to Soul Society after I said I'd go in their place. So after that I went to the Urahara Shop looking for you, but it seems you had already gone into Hueco Mundo." he had said, as the group got up right next to the giant marble palace of Las Noches.

They busted in quickly after a little bit of arguing with Nel, and the group of seven entered a ruinous area before they entered the main part of Las Noches. An intersection with five different hallways in another direction.

All of them noticed the strength of the reiatsu that was being emitted ahead, and frankly it made them a little nervous.

"There are five paths... and four of us here. That means we have no choice but to go down the path one at a time until we reach the end, and..." Ishida began, but Kakashi cut him off.

"No, we should split up immediately, and search for Inoue-san on our own..." Kakashi advised. Ichigo looked at him like he was crazy.

"Are you crazy? We're up against the Espada here! The best option is obviously to stick together..." he shouted. Kakashi didn't even blink at Ichigo's outburst.

"You forget, Ichigo, that the four of us are hardly coordinated to fight as a team. As much as I encourage teamwork, it doesn't look like it's going to matter with reiatsu like that. And besides that, worrying about a warrior's life on the battlefield is an insult," he replied. Ichigo pursed his lips, before he turned away from the rest of the group.

"Fine, I get. We'll split up and look for Inoue on our own..." he said. The rest of the group smiled at him, before Kakashi sheepishly rubbed the back of his head and gave his trademark eye-smile.

"If Renji were here, he'd probably do something along the lines of a cheesy, little chant to get us all pumped up. But, I've got go talent or motivation to do that, so let's just get going..." Kakashi mumbled. The four of them broke and each headed down a different hallway, leaving three confused Hollows in their wake.

After a little bit of protest by Nel, the little Arrancar was bolting after Ichigo, desperately trying to catch up to him. Her "brothers" looked at each other for a moment, before they actually forgot which door Nel had run down. They struggled with the decision for a little bit, and then head down a random path that they thought was the right one.

Meanwhile, Ichigo ran through the corridors of the lower point of Las Noches, and he paused when he felt a presence come up from behind him. He turned around, and winced when he saw Nel clumsily chasing after him, crying and dripping snot.

"Itsygo! Nel wanted to thee you again, Itsygo!" she shouted, as she rushed to catch him in a tackling hug of sorts. The eyes of her mask lit up for a second, before she used Sonido to overwhelm Ichigo and slam into him with her mask.

Ichigo lay there, collapsed as Nel cried into his chest. He sighed in both relief and exasperation, before he felt a presence hiding in the rafters directly above them.

"What's da matter, Itsygo?" Nel asked, before Ichigo shushed her.

"Someone's here..." he whispered, before he placed his hand on the hilt of his Zanpakutou. "Come out!" he shouted up to the rafters, before he saw a flash of Sonido.

The figure flashed through the rafters, Ichigo hot on his tail.

"Bastard, don't run! I told you to come out!" he shouted, but the figure in the rafters only ignored him, and continued to move until they were in much less narrow room, where they could fight without restraint.

Ichigo thought he caught of glimpse of red hair, but the Arrancar flashed away and slashed him quite easily, before appearing to the opposite of him. He heard Nel cry out, but was too focused on his opponent.

"Getsuga Tenshou!" Ichigo cried, using his Shikai's special ability to fire a condensed slice of silvery-blue reiatsu at his opponent. The opponent who had his back towards him held his hand, blocking the attack and sending it elsewhere.

He turned around, giving Ichigo and glimpse at his face.

"If that is all your strength, then it's not going to be fulfilling killing you..." said a stoic voice, and Ichigo's eyes widened. Before him stood a fairly short Arrancar, around Naruto's height, with dull red hair. He was dressed in a normal Arrancar uniform, decorated with slightly longer sleeves that concealed his hands. His Zanpakutou was on his back, a normal katana with a sandy-yellow hilt and an eye-like guard. He had evil-looking green eyes, with his mask fragments creating a raccoon-like burglar mask around them. There was a tattoo of a kanji on his forehead.

"Who are you?" Ichigo sneered, as he didn't expect anyone below the Espada rank able to block his Shikai.

"Arrancar Ciento Cinco, and Privaron Espada... my name is Sabaku no Gaara..." he said stoically, as he released his tan reiatsu that gave off the consistency of the desert sand to Ichigo.

"Privaron Espada?" Ichigo asked. Gaara grunted at him, and held up a few fingers for Ichigo to look at.

"Not that it matters, but a Privaron Espada is an Arrancar that was once among the Espada rank. I myself was once the Quinta Espada in Las Noches, but was since removed when someone stronger emerged..."

With that, Gaara rushed into battle, his sword drawn against Ichigo's Shikai. He had a very bizarre fighting style, filled with quick jabs and wide swings, but he was never reckless with his blade. He definitely had skills that were above a Numerós.

Whenever Ichigo attacked, he was blocked. But not by Gaara's blade. Instead, Gaara's remarkable Hierro would hold through for him, and whenever Ichigo struck him, a few grains of Hueco Mundo sand would fall on the floor.

"What's with this toughness..." he said. He wiped some of the sand off his blade, testing it in his hand. It was real.

"Hierro Arenoso..." Gaara explained, taking a swipe at Ichigo with his Zanpakutou. He didn't explain more than that, choosing to go yet again on the offensive. With a few sandy palm thrusts, Gaara attacked Ichigo's Zanpakutou, jarring his body through the shock wave that entered his Zanpakutou.

Ichigo jumped back, and Gaara took advantage of something. He stabbed his sword into the ground, cracking the tile floor and changing the layout of the battlefield.

Ichigo couldn't help but look at his feet, and he failed to adjust to the change in footing. Gaara was on him when he showed this weakness, grabbing his robe and stabbing through his shoulder, while never losing the stoic look on his face.

"It's not worth it..." Gaara muttered, as he kicked Ichigo back into the wall. Gaara charged up a tan Cero, firing at the wall as Ichigo fell to the floor injured.

"There is no satisfaction in killing you now. No satisfaction at all. You need to be stronger in order for me to be satisfied. Use your Bankai..." Gaara said simply.

"No... I don't feel like it," Ichigo said, to Gaara's glare. The wounded Ichigo climbed out of the rubble and rose his head to face Gaara. He fired another Getsuga Tenshou at Gaara, which the Privaron Espada avoided easily. The orange-haired Shinigami gave him a condescending look.

"Whatever the case, you _used_ to be an Espada, correct? That means you're not an Espada anymore. I have to beat all the Espada sooner or later; I can't afford to go using Bankai against anyone who isn't an Espada!" Ichigo shouted.

Gaara said nothing; he didn't even look offended at the implication that he was weak. He closed his eyes, and Ichigo knew he was in for one hell of a ride.

The Privaron simply stabbed his sword into the ground, and compressed his reiatsu into it. The sword glowed the same color reiatsu as its master, before it sunk into the ground like quicksand.

"Bury, Mapache..." Gaara muttered, as his reiatsu exploded outwards in a storm. Nel squealed as she jumped out of the way of the reiatsu storm that was almost like sand, and Ichigo was forced to cover his eyes.

He gasped in surprise as his foot suddenly became buried in what appeared to be sand, and he almost lost his balance. While he was struggling, the reiatsu around Gaara began to clear.

Gaara's front side remained largely unchanged save for a sand-colored bony material that covered his kneecaps. His back however, became the spitting resemblance of a normal Hollow. His shoulder blades were also covered in the stuff, which ran down and covered his back completely. His trademark gourd that he had in life took shape as well, but it had a long tendril of the sandy armor that shot up out of the gourd and connected to the back of Gaara's mask, which had expanded to cover the entire top half of his face.

Gaara chuckled mercilessly, his stoic demeanor from his unreleased state now completely gone. His eyes underneath the mask were yellow and bloodshot, and they reflected the insanity that lied within. The Arrancar from before was truly gone. In its place was a truly insane Arrancar, like the visage from before was a simple shell that concealed Gaara's true nature.

"Use your bankai, Shinigami! Or else I'm going to use your life to appease the desert!" he snarled menacingly. Ichigo balked at the complete one-eighty from the Arrancar, before he noticed a hole in the bottom of Gaara's gourd-like protrusion, which sand was pouring out of at a phenomenal rate. It was what created the sandy floor.

"I told you, I can't just use Bankai on anyone who isn't an Espada!" Ichigo said in resolve. Gaara sneered at him, before he leveled his claws at the Shinigami. They were huge, bulky monstrosities that seemed disproportional to the rest of Gaara's body, being easily bigger than his head.

He flashed right next to Ichigo, and the Shinigami put up his sword in order to counter-attack. Despite this, Gaara grabbed the blade with his bare claw, his hierro being enhanced in his Resurrección, so much that it didn't even put a dent in them.

He opened his mouth, and fired his Cero. This time however, it had the consistency of sand. Ichigo stumbled back again, and got his foot caught in the sand again.

Gaara held his claw open, and after a second the particles of sand were drawn up from the ground. They took the shape of a sand blade that was as tall as Ichigo, and at least a foot wide. Inch by inch, it looked like it could easily match Ichigo's butcher knife.

Gaara thrust forward like a berserker, grunting as he tried to cleave through Ichigo. The young Shinigami blocked all the strikes coming from the raccoon Hollow. However, Gaara's attacks were strong and heavy, and he crashed back into the wall when Gaara kicked him while he was open.

"Itsygo!" Nel cried from over to the sidelines. Gaara turned his predatory glance at her, before he cracked his claws. A sadistic grin set itself upon his face, and he charged his Cero.

"Maybe _this_ will make you use your Bankai..." he muttered, as he launched his sandy Cero at the young-looking Arrancar. She bounced at the energy impacted the ground next to her, just missing.

"If you wish to protect that child... enter your Bankai. I can't promise that nothing will happen to her if you don't..." Gaara sneered, and he was already charging up another Cero.

"Bastard, don't you dare..." Ichigo cried, as Gaara launched another Cero over at Nel. This time though, Ichigo was there to defend her, in a new, much more streamlined appearance, with a midnight-black blade at his side. He had gone into his Bankai.

"Sorry to keep you waiting... This is my Bankai..." he said, holding Nel underneath the crook of one arm. While he was defending Nel, he cleaved into Gaara, slashing part of his sand armor. Despite that, Gaara laughed and even began to drool.

"Interesting... truly interesting, Shinigami..." Gaara clenched his fists together, and when he unclenched them, there were a couple of holes in his palms. He thrust them forward, and charged up a little bit of reiatsu.

"Tormenta de Arena..." he cried, as twin blasts of compressed sand shot from each palm. Ichigo dodged them easily, using his Bankai's speed to keep himself on his toes.

He got underneath Gaara's guard, slashing his right shoulder as if it were butter. Gaara cried in pain, apparently still not used to the sight of his own blood. He blast Ichigo with another Tormenta de Arena again.

"You damned Shinigami! I'll get you! I'll get you!" he shouted. The Hollowed gourd on his back released more sand, but Ichigo had since taken to hovering in the air.

Gaara continued to blast Ichigo with his sand, and he poured more sand from his gourd, apparently enough for him to blast like a rocket straight up towards the Shinigami.

Ichigo was ready for him.

"Getsuga Tenshou!" he shouted, the black and red reiatsu surging from the tip of the black blade. Gaara snarled, and thought he could take it all with his enhanced Hierro.

He was dead wrong. It sliced through him completely, nearly bisecting him vertically. He collapsed to the ground, defeated, and after that Ichigo flashed down towards the lower level as his Bankai faded.

"Are you alright, Nel?" he asked the child-like Arrancar, who was recovering from the attack that Gaara launched. He looked over to the other Arrancar, whose eyes were fluttering open and shut. It was a serious wound, but he wouldn't die.

"Sorry to worry you like that, Nel. I was stupid to think that I can't use my Bankai on anyone other than the Espada, and I put you in danger because of that," Ichigo admitted.

Nel said nothing, as Ichigo was starting to look a little depressed again. Ichigo looked at the fallen Arrancar that he had defeated using his Bankai, before he shook his head and ran onwards, Nel underneath the crook of his arm. He never bothered trying to heal the Arrancar.

He continued running through the palace, and after almost an hour of running he emerged into a wide room. It was relatively dim, not being very well lit, and was littered with a multitude of pillars that showed off the bizarre architecture of Las Noches.

Ichigo panted for breath as he stood in the wide before, before he noticed a presence directly behind him. He turned around, and his eyes widened as he witnessed the form of Ulquiorra Cifer leaning standing in the back of the room.

* * *

Chad had been lucky in his run throughout Hueco Mundo. He had run into a Privaron Espada, Gantenbainne, Arrancar Ciento-Ocho, and had defeated him after awakening his new powers, simply because the afro Arrancar had decided to go easy on him.

He had spared Gantenbainne's life after that, and made his way out underneath the sun, which surprised him greatly. There was supposed to be no sun in Hueco Mundo, but regardless, it seemed like he could advance from this point onward. He looked at the unconscious Gantenbainne one last time, before he move. Gantenbainne's eyes flickered open, and he noticed a presence standing over to the side. His eyes widened.

"R-Run, Sado Yasutora..." Gantenbainne managed to croak out. Chad turned around and regarded him, and also set his eyes upon the new arrival.

"Don't just stand there! Run for your life, Sado Yasutora!" Gantenbainne said, this time much louder. Chad had already released both of his arms, ready to attack the new opponent.

"'Sup... I need to use you for a second," said the voice of one Uzumaki Naruto, who stood in front of Chad, his hands casually inserted into his pockets. All in all, he looked a little bored.

"_I know this guy's reiatsu is strong, but he looks a little frail, to be honest. Like he can't take too many hits. Rather than see what he can do, I'll just end it here in one shot!_" Chad thought to himself, aiming his powered-up left arm and rushing Naruto.

He aimed his strongest punch he had at Naruto's face, and put everything that he had into that attack. Naruto didn't budge, not even slightly as the powerful fist impacted with his face.

"Is that it?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "_That_ is all you've got to your attacks." he paused.

"Well, if that's the case, I guess it's safe to say you're ready for me to kill you now, right?" he cackled with mad laughter, as he removed his fists from his pockets.

He flashed out of his existence, and Chad coughed up blood after Naruto jabbed his fist directly through Chad's sternum, and ripped it out with little delicacy.

Chad crumpled to the floor, and his world went completely black...

* * *

Kakashi himself was having a similar performance to both of his comrades. He too had entered the Tres Cifras den, and although he had not been confronted by any Privaron Espada yet, he couldn't go long without running into one.

The corridor around him was remarkably narrow, and Kakashi was uneasy, like a trap was going to activate at any moment in time, and the walls were going to enclose around him.

His eyes widened, and he drew his Zanpakutou none too quickly, as his opponent crashed into him at full force, using his head to attack. Kakashi redirected the force of the blow, and throw the crazed Arrancar aside, sending him crashing into the wall.

The Arrancar was getting out of the rubble though; it was clearly not enough to stop it. Kakashi glared at the odd looking Arrancar, who was covered head-to-toe in what looked like a form-fitting Arrancar robe that allowed for swift movements.

The thing that caught his eye though, was the mask. It covered the Arrancar's entire face, and was completely blank, giving the Arrancar the impression that he was faceless. He knew it was male though; he could tell by the physique.

The Arrancar struck an over-exaggerated martial arts pose, before he used to Sonido to fly into action. Kakashi could barely follow his movements, and the obnoxious screaming from the Arrancar was throwing him off guard.

The Arrancar placed his gloved hand on the ground, using the position to perform a sweep kick that was _very_ familiar to Kakashi. The Shinigami skidded back towards the wall, and the Arrancar back-flipped over his horizontal sword slash.

"I see... you are a very worthy opponent, Kakashi-san. I deeply regret having to fight you, and I truly wish I did not have to fight you. However, regardless of what has passed, you and I are on different sides now..."

"How do you know my name? Who are you?" Kakashi asked, his one eye narrowing cautiously. The Arrancar looked at the ceiling.

"You will find out soon enough, but I am honored to be able to call myself Arrancar Ciento-Siete..." he said, giving Kakashi an enthusiastic thumbs-up. Kakashi sweatdropped.

"This passageway is much too narrow for us to fight properly, and there is someone here who would like to see you..." the Arrancar said, before a little whistle sounded in the air.

"That's the signal. We must go!" he shouted, before he flashed out of existence.

"Wait!" Kakashi shouted, before he sheathed his sword and cursed. Using Shunpo, he followed after the eccentric Arrancar. One minute later, the Arrancar flashed into a wider room similar to the one where Ichigo fought Gaara, and Kakashi soon followed after.

The shinobi turned Shinigami noticed another figure present in the room, and he was surprised by how similar the two were in appearance. Overall, the other one had the same mask, the full one that covered their face completely, and it wore the same form-fitting clothes. The only difference between them is that one was slightly smaller.

"I've brought back Kakashi-san..." the slightly smaller one who had led him there said, in a tone that was like how a student talked to his teacher.

"WUUAHH! That's my student!" the bigger one said eccentrically.

"We will defeat him together, right sensei?! Our pride as Arrancar Ciento-Seis and Ciento-Siete counts on it!" the smaller one said in excitement, thrilled at being able to battle.

"Of course! And if we are defeated, we will have to do one-hundred laps around Las Noches, without using our Resurrección!" the bigger one cried. Tears of happiness poured from out of both of the masks, and the two embraced fondly. Kakashi's eyes widened.

"_Waiiit a minute..._" he thought, as he noticed the shocking resemblance.

"Gai-sensei!"

* * *

Ha, my favorite part of this was probably the end. It's still based too much on canon, so I tried to cut down all of the boring detail to get this along. So I slimmed down most of the things that were shown in canon. I just hope I didn't skip a pivotal scene.

Okay, long lists galore, so here it goes.

**Translations and Other Features**

Getsuga Tenshou: Moon Fang Heaven Piercer

Ciento Cinco: One-Hundred and Five

Sabaku no Gaara: Gaara of the Desert

Hierro Arenoso: Sandy Iron

Mapache: Raccoon

Tormenta de Arena: Sandstorm

Ciento-Ocho: One-Hundred and Eight

Ciento-Siete: One-Hundred and Seven

Ciento-Seis: One-Hundred and Six

**Current Espada**

1st: Naruto Uzumaki

2nd: Coyote Starrk

3rd: Baraggan Louisenbairn

4th: Tia Harribel

5th: Ulquiorra Cifer

6th: Nnoitra Gilga

7th: Grimmjow Jeagerjaquez

8th: Zommari Rureaux

9th: Szayel Aporro Granz

10th: Yammy Llargo

Please review.

**_Alban55_**


	42. Verde y Azul

**Absimilard**: Actually, it wasn't that short. The number of words was 5,617, and in terms of word count, there are nineteen Chapters in this story that are shorter than Chapter 41.

Another question I've been getting is: How the hell did Gai and Lee become Hollows. My answer to that is: use your imagination! Even perfectly good people are able to become Hollows. And no, this isn't just a total cop-out response because I didn't think that far ahead and don't feel like explaining!

Also, I have a very important announcement to make. I now know what I'm going to do to get from this point to the ending for this story, and I also know the number of Chapters I am going to most likely end the story with. Do you want to know? Well, I'll tell you. The answer is: 82. The story will have eighty-two Chapters at the end, give or take a few, and will end with approximately 450K-500K words. This isn't set in stone however, things change and I might add or take away some stuff, but I most likely will end within five chapters of that number.

You probably know by now that this story is my main project. In all honestly, I hoping to finish this up within a year. A very ambitious goal to be sure, but I have a ton of other ideas with my other stories that I want to get to, and even a couple stories that I haven't written yet. It's probably gonna take longer than that, though.

* * *

Chapter 42: Verde y Azul

_Clang!_

That was the sound that Kakashi's Zanpakutou made as it clattered to the floor. There weren't a whole lot of things that could surprise or rattle Kakashi, but learning that his "eternal rival" and his student became Hollows? That was a surprise to say the least; he thought that they would be Shinigami.

The whole thing was about as ridiculous as Uzumaki Naruto becoming a Hollow.

Hmph, Naruto as a Hollow... yeah, right.

He reached down and picked up his Zanpakutou, waiting for the two apparently faceless Arrancar to stop hugging. The sunset in the background only served to make the scene even more nauseating. But it only served to show that some bonds couldn't be broken even by death... or Hollowfication.

"Gai-sensei... will Kakashi-san be a match for the might of our combined youthful power?" Rock Lee asked, as he broke the hug with the sensei that he had had in life.

"Chances say no, Lee. I've waited a long time to face my eternal rival in battle once again; the willpower behind our attacks will give us the power necessary for us to succeed!" Gai replied.

"Gai... Lee..." Kakashi said. There was no mistaking that voice. They really were Hollows; it was amazing. To see two of his comrades on the opposite side, and Gai and Lee supporting Aizen. It was disheartening.

"You're... Hollows," he said. Somewhere along the line, it never occurred to him that people from his village _could_ become Hollows. It made sense that there would be a few... but Kakashi had hoped that it wouldn't be anyone he had personally known.

"Correction, Kakashi-san. We are Arrancars, but you are on the right track..." Lee said, giving him a thumbs-up. Kakashi shuddered, it was as cheesy as usual, even as an Arrancar.

"How can you say that so calmly? Our of your comrades from life are Shinigami! It means that there are more than just me... Gai, Lee. If you just stand there and support Aizen, you'll be letting down all your friends!" Kakashi cried. It wasn't possible to tell if Lee or Gai looked angry underneath the mask, but going from the disappointed sigh from Gai's mouth, they weren't.

"Kakashi... do you realize that you're talking to Hollows? It doesn't matter if you were our friend in life, Lee and myself are both Hollows now, and you'll just have to deal with it," Gai explained.

"But, why? Why are you supporting Aizen?" Kakashi cried again. He was getting desperate, and if things continued at this rate, he would fighting Gai again, except this time it would be real.

"Does it really matter, Kakashi? _You _are a Shinigami, and we are Hollows. That reason alone is more than enough of a reason to fight you. Should you really be creating exceptions to your protocol, simply because the Hollows were people that you knew in life?" Gai said sagely, in a rare moment of clarity.

"Gai..." Kakashi whispered.

"Gai-sensei, I believe we should increase the punishment should we fail. If we even so much as use our Resurrección, we will have to run two-hundred laps around Las Noches. If we lose altogether, five-hundred on our hands!" Lee exclaimed, and hearing his precious students brought Gai of his seriousness. It was almost like a comedy routine.

"Good thinking, Lee! Such a thing should keep us motivated to remove Kakashi-san as an intruder! And when we are done, we will walk on our hands around Las Noches anyway!" Gai exclaimed, giving Lee a thumbs-up.

"Gai-sensei!" Lee blubbered, as his eyes began to water underneath his mask.

"Lee!" Gai mirrored Lee's tears, and they embraced. Behind the two, a sunset appeared, where teacher and student stood on the beach and seagulls chirped in the distance.

"This isn't the time for hugging, Lee! Let's show Kakashi our perfect tag-team offense..."

"Yes, sir!"

With that in mind, Lee gave an enthusiastic battle cry as he flashed out of existence. He reappeared in front of Kakashi, his hands on the ground and his feet in the air.

Kakashi realized that this wasn't the time to be reasoning with the two former Konoha shinobi. He drew his Zanpakutou quickly, bringing it to the forefront and blocking all of Lee's strikes.

Lee thrust his hands downward, using the force to lift himself into the air. Using a version of the Konoha Senpuu used in Las Noches, he thrust one of his legs, trying to impact Kakashi's head with the classic Taijutsu move. The higher kick was just a feint however, and the lower kick he performed tried to sweep through Kakashi.

Kakashi was too fast, though. He steadied his blade forward, going in for a simple thrust which managed to catch the end of Lee's leg, which was coming down on him. Lee winced at the wound, but didn't leave himself open for further attack by using Sonido to get out of Kakashi's range right away.

Lee back-flipped back over to his teacher, and he shook his head.

"Your skill with the Zanpakutou is impressive, Kakashi-san. That's twice now you've managed to deflect my hand-to-hand skills." he said. Kakashi frowned.

"An attack like that leaves you far too wide open. I simply exploited the flaw in your strategy..." Kakashi explained. Once again, Lee was itching to get into the fray.

"Not yet, Lee. I'll take him..." Gai said. Lee saluted and stood down immediately, allowing his teacher to enter the fight instead of him. He stretched a little like he was doing nothing more than a morning jog, before he broke out into a sprint.

Kakashi readied himself for an oncoming attack, before Gai flashed out of existence halfway through his stride. Kakashi reacted instinctively as Gai re-appeared to the side in mid-air, with his first facing forward.

"_Shunpo..._" Gai thought, as Kakashi disappeared as well. Kakashi touched down, not taking a knee, before Kakashi reappeared to the side, swinging his blade at Gai.

Gai reacted superbly, his leg shooting up to meet Kakashi's blade with a kick. His Hierro protecting him, his wrapped his leg around the Zanpakutou and tightened his leg muscles, binding Kakashi in place by his sword.

Lee appeared from behind while Kakashi was stuck, landing a heavy punch to Kakashi's face. At that moment, two things happened. As soon as Lee's fist made contact with Kakashi, Gai let go of the sword. And while that occurred, there was a crack in the air, and Kakashi went flying back into the wall.

"Two-on-one is really effective in combat, wouldn't you say, Gai-sensei?" Lee commented casually, before he reappeared in front of Kakashi. He delivered a devastating kick to the fallen Shinigami, not giving him time to react.

The wall burst into pieces of flying rock, creating a crater from where Kakashi had impacted it. Kakashi coughed up blood violently, before Lee grabbed the scruff of his neck.

He wound up, and threw the Vice-Captain of the Fifth Division over to the other side of the room, where Gai was waiting. His "eternal rival" flashed into the air above him, and then thrust his legs downward, catching Kakashi in the shin.

Kakashi impacted the ground, and recovered by rolling to the side to avoid Gai coming down on him from the aerial position. He dragged himself to his feet after that.

"Well done, Kakashi. Although you seem to be at a disadvantage, the fact that you've lasted this long against myself and Lee is impressive. I would expect no less from my eternal rival; you've become seated, haven't you?!" Gai asked. Kakashi choked.

"Y-Yeah... Vice-Captain of the Fifth Division..." Kakashi wheezed. Lee pumped his fist, and Gai posed.

"That's incredible, Kakashi-san. Vice-Captain!" Lee commented.

"Indeed it is, my student. But, even if it is impressive, Kakashi here isn't going to be able to beat us like this." he said, hammering his fist against his open palm. Lee flashed into existence beside his sensei.

"D-Don't count me out just yet..." Kakashi glared, getting to his feet. He was definitely being outclassed, and he doubted he would be able to beat even one of them like this. He held his Zanpakutou out at arm's length, and the sword began to glow with an electric blue.

"Connect..." he trailed off, before he turned his Zanpakutou to the side. Lee and Gai heard the release command, and they immediately began to get a little more excited.

"Raiki!" Kakashi shouted, as a shroud of light-blue reiatsu enveloped his blade. Kakashi's eyes narrowed; it was a tough fight that would force him to use his Shikai, but against old comrades he would have to do it.

Lee and Gai felt the air around them tingle with electric reiatsu as Kakashi's Shikai formed. It was a gleaming silver Zanpakutou in the shape of a jagged lightning bolt that was slightly asymmetrical. The tip of the blade was not just a single point, but rather twin points that diverged outwards from each other. Each tip was conducting electricity, which connected the two points with a line of lightning.

"An electric Zanpakutou, eh? That would fit you completely, Kakashi!" Gai said jovially, as if they were two friends in a spar rather than enemies fighting to the death.

"You'd be correct. The whole thing has the exact same concept as my Chidori, though you could say..." Kakashi flashed out of existence, bringing his blade down against Gai's arm guard, which the Arrancar had brought up to block with.

Gai felt his skin tingle, and he cursed as he jumped back away from the electric blade. He clutched his arm lightly, noting that his robe was slightly singed.

"...it's a little stronger!"

Kakashi held his blade downwards, charging reiatsu into his blade. The jagged points on the edge of his sword connected with a stream of energy. He swung his sword, generating a blast of lightning that flew at the two Arrancar.

A Sonido later, and Gai and Lee were unharmed. Kakashi wasn't done however. He charged his blade again, and this time he struck the ground with it, sending a current of electrical reiatsu through the tile. Gai and Lee were on the defensive now, as when Kakashi performed that attack, they leapt in the air and hovered for a while.

Lee sped towards Kakashi, performing another attack similar to his Konoha Senpuu. But Kakashi blocked it with his blade easily. This time, it not only got through Lee's Hierro, but it shocked him as well.

Lee roared in pain as he disconnected himself with Kakashi's Zanpakutou, flipping backwards and clutching his wounded leg. His entire body was slightly singed, though not as much as Kakashi had hoped.

"Lee... you," Gai began, before Lee cut him off.

"Yes, Gai-sensei. I think it's time. We can't beat him like this in our unreleased state..." Lee shook his head thoughtfully. Gai mirrored Lee's action, before he raised a finger.

"Alright, Lee, but this means extra laps later..." Gai said.

"Yes, sir!" Lee saluted, before he hunched down into a fighting stance. He placed his hand near his hip... and drew his Zanpakutou. The katana shined in the artificial light of the room, before he punched the blade into bits.

"Try... Bestía Azul!" Lee shouted, before the hilt of his broken Zanpakutou also disappeared. Lee was then enveloped in a green reiatsu. His mask began to crack, and eventually fall off his face. Bits of Hollow bone material, turquoise in color, materialized on his thighs, before moving down to became protective knee guards. The same thing happened with arms, his bicep and elbows were covered in the same material. His mask had broken off completely, except for a strip of Hollow material that ran across his forehead like a headband. Lee's face had become visible for the first time, and it showed the same boyish youth that Kakashi had known in life, except this time he looked slightly older, around eighteen. That must have been the age he died.

Seeing the actual face of one of Kakashi's former comrades made him falter. Even though his Resurrección gave him the appearance of a Hollow, that face was the same exact one Kakashi had known in life. It was almost disheartening; in terms of releases, it could've been a lot more hideous. At least then it would be easy to forget that it was Lee.

"Lee..." Kakashi said. No matter how little his release changed his person, seeing Lee more closely resembling a Hollow made Kakashi feel uneasy. This wasn't right; these two shouldn't be Hollows.

Meanwhile, Gai had also drawn his Zanpakutou.

"Protect... Bestía Verde!" Lee's teacher shouted, before he too was engulfed in the same shade of reiatsu.

The two releases couldn't be more similar. It seemed that Lee emulated everything that Gai did... even in death. Gai had the same Hollow bone armor, the same headband, the same everything. _His_ face was also visible. The only difference was that his Hollow material was colored green instead of blue.

"Let's go, Lee!" Gai shouted, as the two of them disappeared in tandem with each other. Kakashi raised his blade, and was surprised when both of them had their speed upped. He shot off a blast of lightning to repel Lee, but Gai was within his guard in an instant.

Gai cried as he thrust his palm forward, very reminiscent of a Taijutsu strike. The attack hurt Kakashi far more than it should have. Gai's attack was clearly coated with something.

Kakashi immediately realized what the fighting style reminded of. He had witnessed the same thing at the Chuunin Exams all those years ago, when Lee had fought a very powerful Suna genin.

This fighting style was similar to how both of them had used the gates.

Gai flashed into existence behind Kakashi; he definitely had the speed. He punched his fists together, making them glow with a green reiatsu before he wound up with a punch that was simple, yet strong. Kakashi dodged to the side, as Kakashi rocketed past him to punch the ground. The result was a crater, but a shockingly clean and orderly one.

Kakashi shook his head; this wasn't good. He was going to definitely lose at this rate, and he couldn't use of his more powerful Zanpakutou techniques. Over to the side, he heard Lee give out a loud, war-like yell.

A green reiatsu covered the Arrancar's body like a shell, and a vein popped on his forehead. His shin and elbow guards also glowed with the green reiatsu, and it looked like it would make his blows more ferocious.

Lee slammed his wrist-guards together, creating a stream of green reiatsu that connected them to each other, much like the lightning that Kakashi's Zanpakutou incorporated.

He then pulled them apart, and the stream of reiatsu hung from Lee's wrists, much like the bandages that he had used in life. And before Kakashi could react, Lee had disappeared, his Sonido much faster than it was earlier.

"_Shit..._" Kakashi thought; he was far too fast for him to make a move. If he knew anything about how Lee fought, he knew what was coming next, but his body couldn't react that fast!

He tried to angle his Zanpakutou to block the strike that was sure to come from below, but he couldn't. Lee managed to kick him straight into the air, before following up with another series of kicks that propelled him skyward.

Lee flashed into the air again, appearing right underneath him in his shadow. It was exactly like the Front Lotus, Lee's signature move, except this time... he didn't need to open any gates to use it. And he was much faster.

The reiatsu "bandages" wrapped around him, binding the Shinigami in place and preventing him from moving or struggling. Lee stopped hovering in his shadow, and wrapped his arms around his mid-section.

"Okay, Gai-sensei! I'm ready!" Lee shouted. Kakashi raised an eyebrow; he wasn't going to perform the Front Lotus? The two of them were just hanging out in mid-air at this point.

"UWAHHHH! I'm ready too, Lee..." Gai shouted, his resurrección glowing with the same reiatsu as Lee's. He put his fingers in a circle, before he charged up a deep, forest green Cero.

"CEEERRROOOOOO!" Gai shouted flamboyantly, launching the beam of energy directly at the two combatants who were hanging out in mid-air. Lee looked excited.

"Gai-sensei!" he shouted, as both he and Kakashi were engulfed by the Cero. Kakashi's jaw dropped at the apparent attack that would clearly hurt Lee as well as him.

The energy engulfed the Vice-Captain, singing his skin and leaving it charred. He grunted in pain, and when he looked up, he saw Lee smiling at him widely. He too was getting damaged by the Cero, but not nearly to extent Kakashi was.

Lee let go of Kakashi, and the Shinigami jerked downward, skidding to a halt on the floor as he laid there, badly singed. He was lucky that the Cero had not instantly atomized him.

Lee landed gracefully on the ground beside him. The Arrancar uniform that wasn't covered by the bony material looked badly burned, and he too was slightly wounded, but other than that he looked to be in fit condition to fight.

"Lee!" Gai shouted, as he used Sonido to get over to Lee's position. "Lee! Are you okay!" he asked in concern. Lee looked him over, before he gave him the thumb's up.

"Of course, Gai-sensei! That's an attack we've been working on for quite some time; of course I would come out of it fairly unharmed..." Lee shouted enthusiastically.

"Ah, your hierro is getting very strong, my student. But... the technique is not perfect; the Cero still caused some damage. We will have to train harder in order to perfect it." Gai explained.

"Now... what should we do with Kakashi..." Gai mused, as Kakashi lay there, struggling to get up. Things didn't seem to be looking good for him.

* * *

"You..." Ichigo mumbled, as he watched the short Arrancar walk towards him, a stoic look on his face. Ulquiorra's hands were in his pockets, and altogether he looked bored. Ichigo remembered him... he was there all the time. At his first encounter, and his encounter with the other blonde Arrancar in the real world.

"Ulquiorra..." he whispered. Nel was quivering over in the corner. Ulquiorra didn't look impressed.

"You know my name? Although, I don't remember ever giving it to you..." he said. He continued to walk. "No matter. Sado Yasutora is dead..." he said bluntly.

Ichigo's eyes widened, and his breathing quickened. He searched around for Chad's reiatsu, but his bit his lower lip when realized that he couldn't find anything.

"No... I refuse to believe that. Chad can't die!" he shouted.

"It doesn't matter. Surely you can feel that his reiatsu has disappeared completely. That means he is no longer among the living..." Ulquiorra commented. Ichigo shook his head.

"No..."

Ichigo tensed up, clenched his fists, and walked in the opposite direction.

"Where are you going?" Ulquiorra asked.

"To save Chad..."

"Didn't I already tell you that he is dead?" Ulquiorra commented.

"I don't believe you. Chad can't die like that," Ichigo said, his voice beginning to crack.

"You're so stubborn. Is it really alright for you to leave without fighting me?" Ulquiorra asked.

"I don't have any reason to fight you. You may be my enemy, but you have personally yet to hurt any of my friends..." Ichigo said. Ulquiorra closed his eyes.

"I see. Would you change your mind if I told you that I was the one who forced Inoue Orihime to come to Hueco Mundo in the first place?" Ulquiorra goaded. Ichigo stood rigid, before he flashed out of his existence. He appeared next to Ulquiorra, his butcher knife Shikai clashing against Ulquiorra's hierro-coated wrist. His face was a look of anger.

"So... Inoue didn't come to Hueco Mundo out of her own free will, after all!" Ichigo shouted. His Zanpakutou struggled to break through Ulquiorra's hierro, and ultimately it failed.

"That's evident. Don't tell me, that even after coming here to save her, you still harbored a bit of doubt?" Ulquiorra said. Ichigo grunted and continued to speak.

"Don't you get it? Because of you, Inoue was marked as a traitor..." Ichigo said.

"I'd hope so. That was a part of the plan, after all..."

Ichigo's glare deepened, and he jumped back away from Ulquiorra when he realized that his attack hadn't done any damage.

"Nel, step back a little further. I'm going to have to go all out here..." Ichigo said. The little Arrancar had her face buried in her stomach, and her hands were covering the top of her head. All in all, she looked scared.

Ichigo charged up his power, allowing waves of red and black reiatsu to pour out of his body. A pillar of smoke and reiatsu hid his form, and Ulquiorra felt the boy's reiatsu increase. Ichigo jumped in the air, now clad in his Bankai robe, but his face was hidden.

Ulquiorra's eyes widened as Ichigo revealed his face, now covered in what was clearly a Hollow mask. A little bit of reiatsu leaked from Ichigo's black sword onto his hands, and he tried a reiatsu-tempered downward slash at Ulquiorra.

Ulquiorra blocked it with his forearm, but his eyes widened when he realized that it was going to cut through his Hierro at this rate. He released contact with the blade by flying back, waving his arm forward to disperse the reiatsu. Ulquiorra flew through several columns at a time, before he used momentum to bounce off the wall, leaving a crater in it.

"_What is this? That reiatsu... it's very similar to ours!"_ Ulquiorra thought. Ichigo was preparing for another strike.

"Getsuga Tenshou!" Ichigo shouted, as he released the wave of black and red reiatsu at the Espada. It sped towards Ulquiorra, its size and speed greater than normal.

Ulquiorra held out one hand to block it, before he raised his other one to also put on the reiatsu. His eyes narrowed slightly, as he was still being overwhelmed by the reiatsu.

"_Shit..._" he thought, as he was engulfed by the attack. Ichigo stood there, panting from the exertion he had to endure, before his mask cracked, and he was back in Bankai form yet again.

"Itsygo!" Nel cried, as she rushed and headbutted him in yet another flying tackle that knocked the wind out of him.

"Nel... N-Nel thought you were gonna die, Itsygo! Uthing all dat crazy power wit your body all beat-up... you canth keep doing thith! Nell was... Nell wath so worried!" Nel blubbered. Ichigo smiled.

"I'm sorry, Nel." As Ichigo was about to get up again, he felt a presence from directly behind him. The dust cleared from behind him, and when he looked up, Ulquiorra was standing there, looking only mildly injured. His Arrancar uniform was in tatters.

"My, my. That surprised me for a second. I wasn't able to stop it using both hands. Was that your full power?" Ulquiorra asked, as Ichigo struggled to form words. He brushed himself off.

"It seems that it was..."

Ulquiorra brought his hand to the forefront, his index finger pointed at the duo. "Disappointing..." Ulquiorra muttered, before his index finger was charging up with an acid-green light.

Ulquiorra released the wide beam of energy, and it was stronger than any normal Arrancar's Cero. It cascaded towards the injured Ichigo, blowing a hole in the wall right behind him. Ichigo flashed into existence in the outside area, carrying a barely conscious Nel under the crook of his arm. He rushed through the ground area, until Ulquiorra appeared right beside him.

The Espada kicked him forcefully, the shock and force transporting him back into the room from where Ichigo had just come. Ichigo kneeled there in the rubble, panting heavily, while Nel moaned wearily beside him.

"You blocked my Cero at that moment by calling forth your mask. A fine high-speed reaction, but this time it shattered in only a second. You won't be able to call it again. Give up," Ulquiorra said bluntly.

Ulquiorra winced as Ichigo stuck his blade directly into the hem of his robe, even if it didn't penetrate his Hierro.

"Who the fuck would surrender to you?" Ichigo breathed. He looked ragged as hell, but that didn't stop him from smiling at his stronger opponent.

"...You're the top Espada, aren't you? That means that if I defeat you here and now, this war is as good as over!" Ichigo reasoned.

Ulquiorra resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Where had this kid inherited his logic from, and why would he assume that he was the strongest Espada? Was it because he had seemed so powerful to him, or was it because he always seemed to be in the center of things? Just because he seemed to be more involved in the affairs of the war, and he had power that this kid couldn't comprehend didn't mean that he was the Primera.

"So, that's it..." Ulquiorra said lazily, grabbing Ichigo's sword so he could slash through the fabric of his Arrancar uniform. "That's too bad for you, then." he said, as his Espada tattoo became visible. Ichigo's eyes widened, as he glimpsed at the "5" tattoo on Ulquiorra's chest.

"Number... _FIVE!_" Ichigo shouted.

"Yeah, Quinta Espada... Ulquiorra Cifer. The _fifth_ most powerful member of the Espada," Ulquiorra said, before he flexed his hand.

"Itsygo..." Nel said meekly, over to the side. With that, Ulquiorra thrust his hand directly through Ichigo's chest, puncturing it and creating a gaping hole.

"_Itsygo!" _Nel shrieked, as Ichigo fell to the ground, apparently dead. Ulquiorra wiped the blood off of his hands. "Kurosaki Ichigo... you cannot defeat me."

"Even supposing you could, there are still four more Espada more powerful than I am. Even if you stand up a thousand times, there is no path to victory for you to take..." Ulquiorra said.

"**_ITSYGO!_**" Nel shouted forcefully, as she was enveloped in a strong reiatsu shroud. Ulquiorra looked on with disinterest; he had figured out who that small Arrancar was at the very beginning.

"So, have you regained your powers now?" he asked, as the pink smoke cleared. When it cleared, a busty green-haired woman wearing a tattered green robe was standing where Nel once stood.

"Former Tercera Espada... Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck. You went missing from Las Noches all those years ago, but now it's apparent what happened to you. You took the form of that child and lost your memories, and the shock of Kurosaki Ichigo's death forced you to regain both your old body and your memories," Ulquiorra commented. It wasn't a guess or a question.

Nelliel glared at the Quinta Espada, before she used Sonido to appear behind Ulquiorra. She grabbed the apparently dead Ichigo in her arms, before she flashed away to get him out of reach of the battle.

"I don't know why you would bother with that... that child is clearly dead," Ulquiorra stated, no hint of sarcasm or mocking behind his voice. It was cold and calculating logic. Nelliel glared at him.

"Ulquiorra..." she said dangerously. Ulquiorra looked at her dispassionately, with half-lidded eyes.

"I had no quarrel with you when I was an Espada; we both stayed out of each other's way. But... today, you've hurt someone very precious to me, and you're going to pay for it!" Nelliel cried. Ulquiorra raised an eyebrow.

"And how, exactly, am I going to pay for it? It has been many years since you were last in Las Noches, and the Espada have evolved since then. The current Espada are far different from when you were in power, Nelliel. That number on your back has no meaning anymore..." Ulquiorra said, refering to the "3" that indicated that she was once the Tercera.

Nelliel said nothing, but she rushed toward the current Quinta, her green Zanpakutou held in her left hand. She held it horizontally, then drew it forcefully before she disappeared from Ulquiorra's sight.

_Clang!_

The sound of metal hitting metal reverberated through the room as Ulquiorra drew his own Zanpakutou, meeting Nelliel's blade in the middle of her attack. The two Arrancar pressed each other for a while, before Nelliel disappeared and reappeared in mid-air.

She tilted her Zanpakutou towards the sky, turning the hilt so the bladed edge was facing her opponent. Ulquiorra held his sword in a steady stance, but once he was ready to thrust forward, Nelliel flipped through the air, and her foot kicked Ulquiorra's blade before he could thrust.

Nelliel winced, Ulquiorra was apparently strong enough to break through her Hierro, but it was relatively minor. She spiralled through the air again, this time her right foot kicking out and catching Ulquiorra right in the chest.

Ulquiorra skidded back along the ground, drawing up dust and chunks of the floor as he attempted to regain his footing. Nelliel appeared in front of him, and Ulquiorra blocked her strike by holding his Zanpakutou horizontally. Nelliel threw a punch at the Quinta, knocking him even more back slightly, making him crash into the wall.

Nelliel stood there stoically, knowing that it wouldn't be enough to defeat Ulquiorra. Indeed, when the dust cleared, he was completely unphased, and only mildly injured throughout the whole ordeal.

While still underneath the cover of dust, Ulquiorra charged up his green Cero, and Nelliel took a stance that said she was ready to take it. The beam fired at her, but she stopped it with a single hand.

The Cero blast halted in mid-air, and Nelliel opened her mouth. She sucked in air, also bringing in the energy of the Cero into her mouth. Ulquiorra's eyes widened slightly, when a lavender sphere of energy appeared in her mouth. It was his Cero, combined with her own Cero.

She launched the Cero Doble, sending the combined power of both Ceros back at Ulquiorra. The result was a powerful shockwave and explosion that rose vertically into the air, and it destroyed a large part of the wall.

Ulquiorra emerged from the wall, looking a little singed, but was otherwise unharmed. Nelliel looked a little surprised that her Cero Doble had done so little damage, but now it was Ulquiorra's turn to go on the offensive.

Nelliel felt the jarring blow as Ulquiorra tried a fluid yet strong slash from the right. He attacked again by slicing upwards diagonally, before he flipped over her, trying to get a fatal blow to her neck.

Nelliel turned around too little too late, but she managed to get her sword up long enough to try and slash through his mid-section, but she halted when she realized that his sword point was able to stab into her jugular.

Her sword was clipping his robe, and his was pointed at a fatal spot. They were in a stalemate situation regardless, but neither party looked perturbed. Nelliel moved her sword slightly, before she withdrew completely.

"This is going to be hard on my body after just regaining this form, and I didn't want to do this... but," Nelliel said, as she held her Zanpakutou aloft in front of her at a horizontal angle. She faced the blade of it out in front of her, before she placed her palm against the blunt side of the sword and held it there. Ulquiorra's eyes widened.

"Declare..." Nelliel spoke.

"_Shit..._" Ulquiorra thought, though he didn't try to stop what she was doing.

"Gamuza!" she cried.

* * *

Kakashi struggled to his feet, using his Zanpakutou as leverage as he tried to withstand the pain of the burns he had received from the coordinated Cero attack. The two were clearly adept at fighting as a team.

"I-I'm not done yet! I-I felt the reiatsu spike all over the place, and I felt one of my comrades' reiatsu disappear... I need to hurry and help them!" he shouted, as he shakily pointed his Zanpakutou in front of himself.

Gai and Lee looked at each other, uncertain looks on their face. Gai in particular looked disturbed at seeing his old rival in this kind of state, almost like he had expected Kakashi to put up a much better fight.

"Kakashi..." he said sullenly, in a rare characterisic moment of seriousness. Kakashi looked battle-hardened and ready; he didn't care that he was fighting his old friend any longer.

"_**Go..**._" Gai said, closing his eyes. Kakashi almost dropped his guard right then and there, and Lee looked at Gai like he had grown a second head, which to be fair, wasn't that rare within Hueco Mundo.

"What?" Kakashi asked suspiciously.

"Gai-sensei! What are you saying?! Kakashi-san is an intruder of Las Noches, and a threat to Hueco Mundo in general! We can't just let him move on just like that!" Lee shouted. Gai shot him a stern look.

"Lee, have we become the type of people who would keep people from their friends?" Gai asked. Lee withered underneath his glare, looking towards the ground in shame.

"No matter what side we may be on, only one thing remains true in this situation. Kakashi came here for one reason, and one reason only. And that is to help out a friend in need! Who are we to keep that from him, on the simple grounds that we must protect Las Noches!" Gai shouted righteously. Lee cast away his look of shame, and looked up at his teacher and saluted.

"Yes, Gai-sensei!"

Gai then pointed at Kakashi dramtically.

"Kakashi, it is clear that I have bested you today, my eternal rival. I will not take your life, and allow you to proceed along your path unencumbered. But, I must warn you, the other Arrancar are not as kind as myself and Lee are. Should you lose to any of them, they will undoubtably kill you... always remember that as you walk through the halls of Las Noches. Now, go!" Gai said, turning his finger and pointing down the passageway leading out of the chamber.

Kakashi looked away... defeat by a Hollow was unacceptable, but he had bigger fish to fry.

"...I won't thank you," he mumbled, as his Shikai faded. He sheathed his Zanpakutou, and sped off down the hallway, disappearing into the dark chamber. Lee looked at Gai quizzically.

"Gai-sensei, was it really right of us to send him ahead like that? If we wanted to spare his life, it would've been better to send him back from where he came. He's more likely to run into one of the Espada now," Lee said.

"Ah, my student, the flames of friendship burn brightly within Kakashi. He knows he can't withdraw from this battle even if his life depends. He will not falter, even if it is against one of the Espada, or even... _Naruto_," said Gai dangerously.

"Naruto-kun has been growing more restless these days, and he holds an unbearable grudge against his former comrades from Konoha. If he runs into Kakashi somewhere along the line, there is no doubt that he will kill him," Lee said.

"That is a bridge we will cross when we arrive, Lee. Now, let's get to our training! We were forced to use our Resurreccion within that battle, so now we must run laps around Las Noches." Gai shouted.

"Gai-sensei!" another sunset appeared.

Kakashi thought he heard the crashing of waves as he rushed through another corridor of Las Noches, at least as fast as he could when he was so heavily injured. That fight had taken its toll on him, though with his opponents that was to be expected. And they weren't even Espada... was his group really cut out to rescue Orihime?

"_Never mind that... I've got to hurry to where Chad is! I can't even feel his reiatsu anymore..._" he trailed off, thinking that the worst might've happened to Chad while they were off on their own. He continued through the hall, seeing a glimpse of sunlight of all things coming out from the exit.

"Geez, those two are as soft as ever, letting you live," came a voice from beyond the hall. Kakashi halted in place, before he emerged onto the Hueco Mundo sand, surrounded by the fake sky overhead.

Standing about twenty feet away from him with his back turned was a short blonde-haired Arrancar. Kakashi couldn't make out the identity, but Kakashi could see spiky blonde hair, a _very_ familiar hairstyle to the Konoha Shinigami.

"Who are you?" Kakashi asked suspiciously, as he placed his hand on his Zanpakutou. The Arrancar said nothing, before a low chuckle emanated from his throat. This turned into full-blown cackling, with such sadism and evil that it made Kakashi's stomach turn.

"Oh, this is too good! I finally get to see a Konoha shinobi after _all this time! _Somebody pinch me, I think I might be dreaming! It's-It's just too much for me to take!" the Arrancar guffawed, before he fell to his knees, crumpling up into a ball. He continued to laugh insanely, gasping and wheezing in between like the laughter was going to kill him.

"**_Who are_ you!?"** Kakashi shouted it this time, as the blonde Arrancar got to his feet. His laughter trailed off, but he continued gasping for air.

"Ha. ha... oh, shit... that was intense for a second. I just couldn't stop _laughing_!" he shouted, wiping a tear from his eye. "But in all seriousness, I'm **_soooooooo_ **happy that you managed to find me, Kakashi..." he said. Kakashi looked at him suspiciously, his Zanpakutou fully drawn now. The Arrancar chuckled one last time, before he turned around and showed Kakashi his face.

The sadistic smirk made him take a little longer, but those features were unmistakeable. Kakashi figured out who it was...

"Naruto?!"

* * *

Okay, that's a good enough place to stop it as any. I don't want it to drag on too long; this was one of the longer Chapters.

**Translations and Other Features**

Konoha Senpuu: Leaf Whirlwind

Raiki: Lightning Demon

Bestía Azul: Blue Beast

Bestía Verde: Green Beast

Cero Doble: Double Cero

Gamuza: Chamois

**Current Espada**

1st: Naruto Uzumaki

2nd: Coyote Starrk

3rd: Baraggan Louisenbairn

4th: Tia Harribel

5th: Ulquiorra Cifer

6th: Nnoitra Gilga

7th: Grimmjow Jeagerjaquez

8th: Zommari Rureaux

9th: Szayel Aporro Granz

10th: Yammy Llargo

I'll be signing off now,

_**Alban55**_


	43. Desesperación

**Guest**: Aizen doesn't know about them, so they're just laying there forgotten. The point of that was to initiate a fate worse than death for all of them.

**Absimilard: **I'm not sure Rudobone would be any match for them, considering there's two of them, and they're still fresh. He killed Dordonii and Cirucci after they were already defeated.

* * *

Chapter 43: Desesperación

"_Naruto?!"_ Kakashi cried out again.

For the second time that day, Kakashi almost dropped his Zanpakutou out of surprise. Gai and Lee were one thing, but to see Uzumaki Naruto, the hero of Konoha... as an Arrancar working for Aizen. The thought was almost unthinkable.

Naruto smirked wider, patting his Arrancar robe down as he paced around the Vice-Captain. Kakashi seemed to be in shock, Naruto noted. His guard was completely dropped; it would be all too easy to kill him in that stance. Then again, it would be all too easy to kill him no matter what Kakashi did.

"Kakashi-sensei... how's fucking long has it been since I saw you last? Three centuries, maybe? I didn't know whether or not I'd _ever_ see you again, but I anticipated that you would become a Shinigami sooner or later. It wouldn't be like you to just retire from a life of military service."

"Naruto... you... you're an Arrancar?!" Kakashi shouted, his grip tightening on the Zanpakutou. How long had the Konoha Association been searching for Naruto? How much faith did Minato have that his son had died an honorable death and had been sent to Soul Society? They had promised the Namikaze family that they would find their son, and now that they had fulfilled that promise, the result was pretty bittersweet.

Naruto... was with the enemy.

"Really? I didn't notice... what was your first clue, Kakashi-_sensei_," Naruto sneered. He spat out the -sensei portion like it was poison, but Kakashi was too distraught to notice.

"Naruto... I... we finally found you," Kakashi said. Naruto frowned at the Shinigami. The word that Naruto focused on was "we", to him that was a _very _interesting word.

"We? Does that mean... there are more people from Konoha that are Shinigami?" Naruto asked. Naruto had known that his parents were such from the information in the Las Noches archives, but he didn't think Kakashi was limiting it to them.

"Yes, Naruto! There are so many of them! Most of your friends and senseis from Konoha had become high-ranking Shinigami, and your parents are there too. I know how long you've wanted to meet them, and now's your chance! You even have siblings now! They've been looking for you for such a long time, they'll be overjoyed when they find out!" Kakashi said. A smirk made its way onto Naruto's face, before it turned into a full-blown smile. Kakashi thought he was overcome with joy.

"It's been hard on them, but I'm sure it has been just as hard on you, being away from your friends and family for all these years. But, you don't have to fight for Aizen, you don't have to be an Arrancar! You can come back with us, and support Seireitei in this war. You can be with all your friends again!" Kakashi said. Naruto began to laugh, and Kakashi once again thought he was just happy.

"We can get you purified from that horrible Arrancar form; you can even be instated with the Shinigami..." Naruto was beginning to wonder whether or not Kakashi was saying this stuff to try and assure himself that Naruto wasn't evil. He sure had changed in the afterlife; he wasn't nearly this ranty all those years ago.

Naruto was laughing maniacally now, and Kakashi was beginning to notice that the tone was a _little_ malicious. It wasn't joyful laughter; it was evil laughter that chilled him to the bone.

"So, they'll all Shinigami now, huh? It's perfect, so perfect!" he shouted, throwing his arms about him and screaming to the sky. Kakashi could take all that talk about purification and shove it up his ass.

"What's perfect, Naruto?"

"Oh, nothing... just the fact that I'll be able to skin all of them alive, now that I know they're in the Seireitei!" Naruto laughed, more of a cackle than before. Kakashi's eyes widened, and he gripped his Zanpakutou so tightly that he drew blood.

"You... _WHAT?_" he asked in bewilderment. Naruto grinned cheekily, before he shook his head condescendingly at the Shinigami.

"Oh, Kakashi... Kakashi, Kakashi, Kakashi. Don't you get it? I _hate_ you..." Naruto hissed, in a voice that was true to those type of words. He then put his hands casually in his pockets.

"All that shit about reuniting with my friends and parents... I don't care. The only relationship I have with Konoha now is my hatred for it. I _hate_ every last one you, and my only goal now is to slice you up and spill your guts all over the ground. That's right, _I'm going to kill every last one of you..._" he said. The last part of his speech took on a heavy undertone, and Naruto looked at Kakashi with a truly nightmarish face.

He paced around Kakashi completely, completely looking to the side.

"Naruto? Is Aizen making you say this? Did he indoctrinate you?" Kakashi asked. That seemed to be it for Naruto, as he got underneath Kakashi's lackluster guard, and grabbed his collar at a speed Kakashi couldn't react at. His breath washed all over Kakashi.

"I _hate _Aizen... and I _hate_ you, remember? You seem to have forgotten that we're not all buddy-buddy with each other like with Gai and Lee. When I said I was going to kill you, I meant _all _of you, including you. I just don't want to kill you without a little resistance; that would be too boring..."

Kakashi seemed to take the hint after that. He got into his primary fighting stance, before he glared at what was a clear mockery of what Naruto used to stand for.

"Naruto, I know you're in there! Don't let the Hollow inside you win! I know you have the will strong enough to beat it! You have the Will of Fire, the same one that saved Konoha all those years ago!" Kakashi shouted, trying to appeal to the good within Naruto. Naruto wasn't impressed.

"I'm right here, don't you get it?" he asked, before he disappeared using Sonido. He reappeared right in Kakashi's face, his right leg torqued to the side. Kakashi looked surprised.

"**I _AM_** **Naruto**!" he cried, before he let loose with a front kick right in Kakashi's body. The Shinigami want flying back underneath the force of Naruto's hierro-enhanced kick. He skidded along the sand, before he jabbed his sword into the ground.

"We spent so long searching for you, Naruto. You're coming back to Soul Society with me!" Kakashi said with determination, as he leveled his sword at Naruto.

"Connect, Raiki!" Kakashi shouted, as the familiar jagged form of his lightning Zanpakutou came into existence. Naruto watched on with disinterest; Kakashi's Shikai was nothing special.

Naruto himself lowered into a stance.

"There's no way I'm going to Soul Society, and there's no way you can force me to go there! I'm gonna kill you, right here, and right now. That will be the end of this conflict between us," Naruto said. Kakashi swung his sword in mid-air, before he noticed something odd about his opponent.

"You're not putting up much of a fight, you know? Surely you don't believe you can beat me without releasing your Zanpakutou... this Resurrección as Arrancar call it," Kakashi said. He was honestly hoping he could end the fight before that happened. Seeing Gai and Lee look like Hollows disturbed him; he didn't want to see Naruto like that too.

It confused him greatly when Naruto began to laugh.

"You don't know who I am, do you?" he asked. He had his reiatsu suppressed, so of course Kakashi wouldn't be able to tell. Kakashi shrugged nonchalantly.

"You're Naruto, a normal Arrancar in Aizen's army. You shouldn't be any stronger than I am... judging from your reiatsu" he stated. Naruto laughed again.

"Allow me to show you something!" he said. He rolled up his left sleeve, before he thrust his arm forward and pointing to a jagged "1" that was tattooed on his bicep.

"Primera Espada... Uzumaki Naruto. Pleased to fuckin' meet ya!" Naruto said, as Kakashi's eyes widened. Naruto released his reiatsu after all, allowing Kakashi to drink it its power.

"Enjoying the taste of my reiatsu, are you?" Naruto taunted, as Kakashi began to breathe heavily. He wasn't even exerting all of it. "You claimed that I needed to release my Zanpakutou to win this fight, but doing that would be overkill. If you're only a Vice-Captain, I don't even need to _use_ my Zanpakutou!" Naruto cried, removing his hands from his pockets.

"_Strong..._" Kakashi thought, thinking about the reiatsu. The form of his Zanpakutou was beginning to crumble, and the electricity was going out of control. Things didn't look too good if they continued at this rate.

"_No! I have to try... not just for Naruto's sake, but for everyone's sake!"_ he thought, as he summoned the willpower necessary to stand. He rushed Naruto, who smirked at the oncoming attack.

"I could kill you in one attack, but where's the fun in that? So, I'll fight down to your level..." Naruto muttered, as Kakashi disappeared at the last second. The frontal attack was just a ruse.

Kakashi appeared in his blind spot, but Naruto sensed his reiatsu before he even approached. Kakashi was about to bring his Zanpakutou down on Naruto, but Naruto pointed a finger at him.

He launched a quick Bala at Kakashi, the orange light blinding him and making him lose focus. The Bala veered off to the side, but Kakashi was disoriented long enough for Naruto to kick Kakashi right in the stomach. The Shinigami went flying backwards, before he righted himself and rushed to the side.

"Bala Siguiendo..." Naruto muttered, as the "following bullet" homed in on Kakashi. He flipped over the low-power attack, before Naruto launched several more in his direction.

Kakashi avoided all of the homing projectiles, before he rushed Naruto with his Zanpakutou extended. Naruto caught the electric blade in his hand, flipping over the Shinigami and landing to the rear. His finger lit up, and his launched another Bala Siguiendo at Kakashi, who was still recovering.

Kakashi grunted as the attack clipped his in the shoulder, the energy searing his skin and making him fall back. Naruto grinned at Kakashi's misfortune again.

"Hmm, sorry Kakashi. No matter how much I want to fight you down at your level, it seems I am unable to make myself that weak. Even right now I'm too much for you," Naruto taunted.

Despite himself, Kakashi smirked under his mask.

"Oh, you've learned to talk big for a Genin who fell for a obvious rope trap back in the day..." Kakashi said. Naruto wasn't phased.

"Back in the day? You're starting to sound like an old man... it's fucking gross," he countered, before he charged up another Cero. It wasn't Naruto's vibrant orange Cero. It was a spherical shape, but it was a deep purple in color, and seemed to be comprised of a viscous liquid instead of energy. Indeed, as Naruto form, drops of Cero with the consistency of toxic sludge splattered onto the ground.

"What... is... _that!?_" Kakashi asked in disgust, looking at the ball of Cero sludge in disgust.

"Kakashi... did you know that I boast the most impressive move-set out of all Arrancar. Unfortunately, I can't use any of my techniques from when I was a Hollow unless I release, but I have three forms of Cero in addition to normal and Gran Rey Cero, four forms of Bala besides normal, and a few techniques that manipulate reiatsu, in my simple unreleased state. Bala Siguiendo is one of them... and _this..._" he looked at the ball fondly.

"...Is another of them. One of three unique forms of Cero that I am able to use while unreleased... Cero Venenoso." he explained, holding the sphere out.

"You see, this toxic Cero has some very _interesting _effects... and I'm going to put this Cero right into your face and watch its effects work. What those effects _are _however, well, I'll leave that to your imagination." he said. Kakashi didn't notice that Naruto had reappeared right next to him, and the poisonous Cero was dangerously close.

"Telling me all this information... explaining your power... amateur move," Kakashi said. Naruto shook his head.

"Not really. You're not fast enough to escape me nor are you strong enough to beat me. Your death is guaranteed at this moment, so I decided there was no harm in telling you that..." Naruto said.

"Well, when I bring you back to Soul Society, that information will be very useful..." Kakashi said, as he swung his Zanpakutou from the left. There was a blur of electricity.

"Not gonna happen, Kakashi!" Naruto cried, as he held out his hand which had the Cero contained in it. It mirrored Kakashi's strike, and the tip of the blade touched the edge of the sludge.

Kakashi's eyes widened; he could practically feel his Zanpakutou getting corroded away. He pulled his blade out, and winced when he saw that the two tips that conducted electricity had rusted and were no longer working.

"What the hell?"

"Okay, Kakashi. You seem to be trying _way _too hard to "save" me, when it's clear I don't want or need. There is such an extreme lack of killing intent in your blade that it outright disgusts me... but what I tell you next may change your mind," Naruto smirked deviously. He was chuckling on the inside.

"Tell me, Kakashi. You know about the destruction of Konoha roughly a century ago? How it was wiped clean off the map?" Naruto asked. Kakashi didn't like where this was going.

"Y-Yeah... an organized Hollow force supposedly destroyed our home village, but they found no casualties. The villagers and even the shinobi just _disappeared_. Soul Society claims that it's the work of a Hollow codenamed Vulpes C..." Kakashi said suspiciously. Naruto placed his palm on his face, obscuring his eyes.

"Yeah, that Vulpes C guy, I'm so jealous. Jealous that I couldn't have been the one who destroyed... Of course, I would be," he trailed off, before his free hand shot from his face, his eyes snapped open and he sneered at Kakashi.

"_**If I wasn't him!**_**"** he boomed, before he cackled. His mirthful laughter filled the air, and Kakashi almost felt physically ill. Naruto continued to jerk and struggle with his laughter, planting his feet on the ground in order to contain himself.

"What? You mean..." Kakashi said. "_YOU did that?"_ he asked frantically. He finally allowed himself some anger at the expense of the Arrancar, and his reiatsu strengthened. Naruto drank it all in.

"Yes! I did it all! I had my forces attack Konoha and capture all the humans there, civilian and Shinigami alike. Then I brought them back to my old kingdom where I had Szayel experiment brutally on them, turning into mutated freaks of nature..." he guffawed. Kakashi had begun shaking.

"And... _what_ did you do with them after that?" he asked in anger. Naruto grinned at him, his eyes lidded. He spit on the ground.

"Well, I pit them in my own personal arena of course, laden with traps and soldiers. I even took the field myself for a little while, but of course... not _all _of them died," he said, rolling his eyes.

"And?"

"After I was done with them, well, they were still in those hideous transformation that they had somehow inflicted upon themselves. I built a giant pigpen just for them and sealed the exit. They're all down there somewhere I guess, alive. It's been over a century by now, I'd guess..." Naruto mused.

He thrust his elbow out, his Hierro blocking against Kakashi's blade. It wasn't harnessing lightning anymore, but Kakashi looked pissed enough that it didn't matter.

All that carnage, all that suffering, he couldn't take it anymore. The very thought disgusted him; Naruto had gone out of his way to ensure that the villagers would be suffering for an extended period of time, and for what? Naruto or not, his home village screamed for justice over the culprit who did it. He was going to have to kill Naruto.

"Finally, Kakashi. You've got some killer intent behind your blade now," Naruto said, rolling his eyes. Kakashi grunted.

"As much as it pains me to say it, I can't allow you to live. It would be impossible to forgive you after what you've done, so I'm going to end your life here once and for all..." Kakashi said dangerously.

Naruto still had the Cero Venenoso charged up in his hand, but Kakashi didn't care. Even if his Zanpakutou was weakened, he charged at Naruto anyway.

Naruto did something that might've surprised anyone with a knowledge of Cero. As Kakashi came close, Naruto didn't launch the Cero. Instead, he swiped it like it was his own Zanpakutou.

He missed, swiping a millisecond too early and missing Kakashi's sword hand by an inch or two. But it didn't matter, as the Cero Venenoso gave off a lighter purple gas, and for some reason Kakashi dropped his Zanpakutou.

Kakashi felt his hand begin to burn lightly, and large and thick buboes popped up on his right hand. It was very painful for the Vice-Captain, he couldn't even hold his Zanpakutou.

"It's a vesicant!" Kakashi shouted. He wanted to clutch the wound, but there was a fear that it would spread. He didn't know the capability of the poison.

"Correct, I developed the Cero with Szayel a few decades ago. The reiatsu contains a chemical compound that acts as a very strong blister agent. Don't bother trying to cure it; this is some of Szayel's greatest handiwork..." Naruto said, before he smiled.

"And you didn't even get a full taste of it," he said sadistically. Naruto leaped into the air, and Kakashi breathed in deep. Naruto pointed his hand downwards, and launched the full Cero. It didn't fire like a normal Cero, and was launched forward just like a pile of sludge.

Kakashi moved to avoid it as the Cero splattered in his wake, where he would've been if he hadn't moved. He looked at his right arm, and noticed. The poison was beginning to spread.

He Shunpo'd over to where his Zanpakutou was, using his uninfected arm to try and grab it. A few seconds longer, and he would've got it. Almost there, and...

Naruto appeared, right in front of Kakashi.

The ex-Jounin's eyes widened as Naruto kicked the Zanpakutou out of his way, before he grasped Kakashi around the neck. The Shinigami struggled for air.

"I've been holding back this entire fight. I _let_ you avoid all those attacks Kakashi, you didn't dodge. But, you see, I've had enough playing around. I need to get to where the Kurosaki kid is now." Naruto said, looking Kakashi straight in the eye.

Kakashi choked, as Naruto held his other arm in front of Kakashi.

"Las Tres Curvas!" he shouted, as a crescent shaped blade of reiatsu materialized in his hand. Within seconds, he let out three of those from his hand. The first one impacted Kakashi in the stomach, slicing through the robe and skin. The next two doubled up on the damage by providing a heavy wound to the same area. When he had launched all three crescents, he released Kakashi, allowing him to flop to the ground like garbage.

"Whoa, you're still alive?" Naruto asked, raising an eyebrow. The Vice-Captain of the Fifth Division had taken a heavy wound to the gut, and the poison was rapidly spreading through his body, but he was breathing lightly, and his eyes were fluttering open and shut.

"Naruto... I," Kakashi began, his voice tinged with sadness this time instead of anger. Naruto grinned.

"Save it, Kakashi! I know it's practically a creed of you people to provide your victor with a over-dramatic speech about how you didn't manage to accomplish anything, but I don't feel like hearing it. So how 'bout instead you-" he cut himself off, charging another Curva in his hand.

"Talk to La Curva!" Naruto shouted, aiming the attack at Kakashi's neck. He released the beam of energy, and it sliced through Kakashi's neck like butter. Kakashi's head went rolling across the battlefield, a look of shock still plastered on his face.

Hatake Kakashi, Vice-Captain of the Fifth Division... had died. Not splendidly or with honor, but killed by an Arrancar.

The whole thing had been pretty fun for Naruto...

* * *

"Let me out! Please, let me out!" Orihime cried from her locked cell. Despite the fact that Loly and Menoly had brutalized her to near unconsciousness, she simply had to get out of this cell.

"No! No! First Sado-kun, then Kurosaki-kun! What is going on here?" she told herself, tearing pouring from her eyes. She banged her fists helplessly against the wall, her strikes getting weaker and weaker as she continued.

A bright light appeared on the wall next to her, before it was blasted to bits, despite the fact that the door was literally three feet away. Orihime backed away from the blast, and her eyes widened when she saw who it was.

"Yo, Orihime-chan... I need you for something real quick," Naruto laughed, seeing Orihime cowering in the corner.

"Now, now... don't make that face. This little deal will help both you _and_ me. So it's mutually beneficial. It might even help you save that pretty little boyfriend of yours from death!" Naruto shouted.

In the corner of the room, Orihime gulped.

* * *

When Nelliel released her Zanpakutou, the entire room became flooding with a magenta reiatsu. Ulquiorra was unphased; he simply swept his hand to the side and dispersed any that was coming for him.

The smoke and reiatsu clearly, and from it emerged an entirely different Nelliel. The top half of her was mostly the same, though her legs were gone in favor of a goat's or antelope's lower body and legs, making her resemble a centaur. Her mask fragments extended down her temple by her ears, giving it a slightly more realistic impression of a helmet. The humanoid upper half of her body was covered in bony Hollow mask that took the form of guards on her shoulders, elbows, and hands. In her right hand, she clutched an enormous lance.

"Ah, Gamuza. I personally have never seen your sword release, but I've heard rumors about its capabilities..." Ulquiorra commented, as Nelliel readied her lance. Ulquiorra thrust his Zanpakutou in front of him, ready to take anything she threw at him.

She wound her body backwards, ready to throw her weapon. Ulquiorra brushed off his Arrancar uniform once last time.

"Lanzador Verde!" she cried, and she threw her lance, her momentum and wind-up sending it rocketing through the air with incredible force. It spun on its axis, and pink reiatsu gathered in the tip.

Ulquiorra barely got his Zanpakutou up in time, the lance spinning against his blade. Ulquiorra felt it begin to crack underneath the pressure, and his eyes narrowed. He wisely withdrew after that, flashing to the side, and watching the lance careen into the wall.

"It does have a considerable amount of power. Naruto trained you well in such a short period of time, but since you've been inactive for so long, you are vastly outclassed..." Ulquiorra said.

Nelliel didn't say a single word, and instead simply flashed out of existence to draw her lance out of the wall. Using Sonido, she reappeared back where she once was. The two stoic opponents stared each down, before they both Sonido'd simultaneously. The end of Ulquiorra's blade met Nelliel's lance, and they flashed in and out of existence as they danced across the floor.

Sword met lance once again, but this time Nelliel flashed away before Ulquiorra, coming into existence beside him. She twirled her lance about her, sweeping it in a motion that would strike horizontally through Ulquiorra.

Ulquiorra's blade shot upward to meet the strike, but one of Ulquiorra's eyes closed slightly as he struggled underneath the force of the blow. He pulled back again, almost stumbling this time, as Nelliel continued to rain heavy and fast blows on Ulquiorra.

"Lanzador Verde!" she shouted again, using the same technique twice. The lance went flying through the air, but Ulquiorra charged up his green Cero in his finger. The energy struck the lance, slowing it down completely and sending it flying off elsewhere.

But Nelliel was ready for him.

She absorbed the Cero yet again, using the Cero Doble technique for mix their Ceros. She fired the result back at Ulquiorra, whose eyes widened. The energy impacted him soundly, and Nelliel stood over him, seemingly victorious.

Before she could savor her victory, she felt another _very _familiar reiatsu enter the room. A bead of sweat ran down her forehead onto her nose, and she turned frantically in response to the new presence.

"Well, it looks as if you two have been having fun down here..." Naruto's voice rang out, as he used Sonido to appear directly in the middle of the room, carrying a large sack over his shoulder.

"Naruto!" Nelliel growled, her voice tinged with hatred. Over where the Cero Doble had gone off, the dust was beginning to clear, and Ulquiorra was getting to his feet. His clothes were fairly damaged, and he was covered in light scratches. A stream of blood ran down the side of his face, but he looked relatively unharmed.

Nelliel looked torn; there was no way she could possibly win with the both of them here. Oddly enough, Naruto didn't seem to be paying much attention to her.

"Ignoring your fight against our _old friend_ here, I'm disappointed that I wasn't able to get here first. You just _had_ to kill the Kurosaki kid, didn't you Ulquiorra? Oh well, I guess its my fault for not telling you that this kid had another purpose to serve."

"I apologize, Naruto..." Ulquiorra said stoically. Naruto shook his head.

"Whatever, I don't care. I just thought that we've maybe found a way to lure this kid over to our side. See if we can control those strange Hollow powers that he seems to have..." Naruto said.

Ulquiorra raised an eyebrow.

"Keep Nelliel busy. I'm going to see if I can induce a little something in Kurosaki's emotional state. He may very well be able to draw out more of that power!" Naruto said, as he rose the sack over his head. Nelliel looked like she wasn't going to let him, but Ulquiorra's blade blocked her lance before she could attack Naruto.

From within the sack emerged a bound-and-gagged Orihime, who looked very shaken up by something a little bit more than being forced into a burlap sack. The ropes around her mouth and hands were cut suddenly, and she stumbled forward, tears pricking in her eyes. She bawled loudly, before her eyes locked onto a fallen form close to her. She seized up, and all her tears stopped. She simply kneeled there, her face a picture of shock, her eyes wide with horror.

"K-K-Kurosaki... kun?" she questioned. She brought her hands closer to the dead Shinigami, questioning whether or not he was really laying there, dead.

"Heal him..." Naruto said bluntly, sitting down on a broken pile of floor as Nelliel and Ulquiorra continued to fight. A scowl was on his face, and that expression was the only thing that kept Orihime from screaming.

"Eh?"

"Are you deaf?! Heal him!" he roared at her, making her seize up again.

"B-But..." she said.

"Stop fucking around and heal him already! I bust you out of your cell, and I _let _you heal him. For all he's worth, he could sit there and be dead for the rest of time, but if you want to see him alive again, heal him!" Naruto shouted, glaring forcefully at her while releasing some of his reiatsu.

That seemed enough to jolt Orihime out of her stupor, as two of her hair accessories broke off from the rest of them, and the two members of the Shun Shun Rikka flew over to where Ichigo lay dead.

"S-Souten Kisshun... I-I reject!" she shouted, as the glowing orange light of her time restoration covered the dead Shinigami, and began to heal his wounds, albeit slowly.

"_What's with t-this reiatsu? I-I can't reject it!_" Orihime thought to herself. The hole in Ichigo's chest was closing up extraordinarily slowly, and Naruto was watching on with impatience. She stared over at the Primera Espada; there was something else in that sack, something that had horrified her to the core.

Slowly and surely, the complexion returned to Ichigo's body, and Naruto was getting impatient. Nelliel and Ulquiorra were still fighting, the clang of their weapons reverberating through the air.

Orihime winced as Ichigo sat up suddenly, yelling in torment. The shield around him cracked and split apart completely, and Orihime backed up out of surprise, but quite a bit of relief.

"Kurosaki-kun!" she shouted in joy. Ichigo looked around in alarm, like he was still looking around for his opponent. He screamed and pointed a finger accusingly when he spotted Ulquiorra.

"Ah, Ulquiorra... you," he said dumbly, as Ulquiorra stopped fighting to stare at him. Nelliel saw his revival too, and her Resurrección faded. Now on two legs, she rushed over to him, catching him in a bone-breaking hug.

"Ichigo!" she cried, as her breasts pressed into Ichigo's body. A heavy tinge of red come over Ichigo's face, and he struggled to breathe. Over to the side, Orihime blushed.

"W-Who are you?! Nel!" Ichigo said, noting the similarities in actions and appearances between the two Arrancar.

"That's right. She's Nelliel Tu Odelscwanck. A former Espada, and my personal Fracción for a time," Naruto said. He looked bored with the situation, and he fiddled with the stack.

"An Espada? Nel is!?" Ichigo said incredulously. Nel refused to make eye contact with the boy.

"But enough about all that shit. There are more important matters to deal with. So, I'll tell you straight up: _I'm _the one that revived you!" Naruto sneered at him. Ichigo seemed to realize who he was for the very first time.

"Ah! You... you're the one who was there in the real world, the one who-" he was cut off, as Naruto flashed right in front of him, holding his sword to Ichigo's neck.

"**_Shut up!_**_" _he said forcefully. Ichigo wisely shut up.

"I didn't revive you because I like you, or because I want to help you. In fact, I revived you because I want to show you something... something I know you're not going to like!" Naruto hissed.

"Eh?" Ichigo said, dumbfounded. Orihime was yelling something at Naruto, but he wasn't paying attention. The Primera simply walked over to the burlap sack, and pulled something out from within.

"I wanted to show you _this!_" he cackled, as he pulled a severed head out of the bag. More specifically, Chad's head, which Naruto had cut off when he had killed him. The look of shock was still plastered on his face.

"**Chad?!**" Ichigo shouted in alarm, getting to his feet. A purely distraught look set itself upon his face, like he couldn't believe he was seeing his friend's severed head right in front of him.

"Not just him... I also have _this!_" Naruto cackled again, as he pulled _another_ severed head from inside the bag. This time it was none other than Hatake Kakashi.

"**Kakashi?!"** Ichigo shouted again, seeing another friend dead at the heads of Las Noches. A wave of red and black reiatsu began to surround his form, and he clutched his shoulder so hard he was drawing blood.

"I killed them myself! What's wrong, do you _hate_ me for it? Are you going to attack me?" Naruto said. Nelliel and Orihime tried to comfort Ichigo, but they were simply pushed away.

"You bastard..." Ichigo whispered, before he let loose a bloodcurdling scream to the heavens, the powerful reiatsu that oozed from him pushing Nelliel and Orihime back as if they were mere garbage.

"**_YOU BASTARD_!**" he roared, as Hollow mask began materializing on his face. Unbeknownst to him, Hollow material had begun to gather on other places of his body, and his hair was beginning to grow.

The reiatsu washed over Naruto, and he drank it all in. He rolled the heads onto the ground in front of Ichigo, having no more use for them. That only made Ichigo even more angry.

"Nice reiatsu... you're drawing out more and more of that Hollow power. It's-" his smile turned into a frown, as a rumbling and intense reiatsu washed over the area. Ulquiorra, Orihime, and Nelliel felt it too, and the only person who didn't notice was Ichigo in the middle, who was still growling at Naruto.

"Ulquiorra, is that-" he asked.

"Yeah, it seems that they've started. We can't afford to waste any more time here..." Ulquiorra replied. Naruto frowned; he wouldn't have enough time to subdue Ichigo in this state.

"Well, unfortunately we're going to have to cut our fight short. You see, Aizen has just begun to open up the gate that leads to Soul Society, and we need to get there before he starts rounding up Arrancar." Naruto explained.

"Running away?" Nelliel taunted, trying to get Naruto to stay.

"Not really, it's just that securing a gate to Soul Society is far more important than fighting three pieces of garbage. It's been fun, but I'm going to have to leave you here with what appears to be a rapidly Hollowfying Kurosaki..." Naruto said sagely. He disappeared with Sonido, and Ulquiorra did the same thing a few seconds later.

Under the roof of Las Noches, Aizen continued to open the gate to Soul Society, while Ichigo continued to change form into something that was far more monstrous than his Visored transformation.

* * *

Okay, we're done here, and yes, Kakashi and Chad are really dead.

Some of you may remember the Las Tres Curvas move from when Naruto fought Fuermos.

**Translations and Other Features**

Gran Rey Cero: Grand King's Cero

Cero Venenoso: Poisonous Cero

Las Tres Curvas: The Three Curves

Lanzador Verde: Green Lancer

Shun Shun Rikka: Six Flowers of the Hibiscus Shield

**Current Espada**

1st: Naruto Uzumaki

2nd: Coyote Starrk

3rd: Baraggan Louisenbairn

4th: Tia Harribel

5th: Ulquiorra Cifer

6th: Nnoitra Gilga

7th: Grimmjow Jeagerjaquez

8th: Zommari Rureaux

9th: Szayel Aporro Granz

10th: Yammy Llargo

That's all for now.

_**Alban55**_


	44. Golpe de Estado

**Digman14**: I don't think so. Theoretically, I think he could go to Soul Society at any time, but needs the Ouken to access the Spirit King's dimension. I vaguely remember him saying defeating the Gotei 13 at FKT, and then going to Soul Society to make the Ouken with the real town.

I just found out that the Gotei 13 has a complete total of only 3,000 troops in canon. That is such a ridiculously low number that it's downright stupid. I'm definitely going to expand the size of their force here.

* * *

Chapter 44: Golpe de Estado

After Naruto and Ulquiorra flashed away from the scene, Orihime and Nelliel were left alone with the rapidly Hollowfying Ichigo. While his mask rapidly formed, an unbelievable pressure was washing off of Ichigo in waves. The two girls almost gagged on the choking and oppressive red and black reiatsu that was pouring from Ichigo's body.

The room was silent for a moment, and then Ichigo gave a loud, inhuman shriek as he clutched his hands to his forehead in pain. His mask was materializing without his will, his orange hair was growing longer down his back into what almost resembled a lion's mane.

"K-k-Kurosaki... kun," Orihime managed to stutter out despite herself. Nelliel admittedly was faring much better than the weaker human girl, and she had the sense to back away from Ichigo. Orihime reached out to touch the Hollowfying boy, an action that surely would have been suicidal. The reiatsu pricked her hand, causing her to squeak lightly.

"No! Get away from him!" Nelliel warned, as Orihime pulled her hands away completely, but otherwise didn't move. Orihime continued to sit there, stunned. She didn't even register the presence of the much older green-haired Arrancar in her released state who was there with her.

Nelliel once again yelled at the girl, and Orihime once again stood there in shock. The boy that was once a Shinigami was changing into something far more hideous before her very eyes, and she couldn't take it. She began shaking, hugging herself, trying in any way to use her own body as a comfort device.

"What are you doing? Get out-" Nelliel cried, but she was cut off. Kurosaki Ichigo was now standing up, and to top it all off, directly behind her. He had slipped underneath her Pesquisa.

"H-How?" she asked outloud, as the creature was growling at her forcefully. Nelliel knew the orange-haired Shinigami that was Ichigo, and this was not it. This creature bore an exact resemblance to a Hollow.

The new Hollow Ichigo bore no resemblance to human Ichigo except for the fact that he had orange hair. He was covered in a mask that slightly resembled the one in his Visored state, but this one had two long horns jutting out of either side of his head. Stripes ran down the mask, and five more identical stripes were running from the hole in the chest, which continued to become Hollowed out with reiatsu. His body was the chalk-white of Hollow mask, his hands and feet were adorned with claws, and a few clumps of what looked like faux hair were concentrated on his shoulders and his ankles. His expression was blank, and his posture didn't look like it was ready to kill.

"Ichigo..." Nelliel said blankly. She was breathing a little heavier, and Ichigo stared down at her, finally giving some kind of indication that he was listening. He then turned his head up, seeing the heads of Chad and Kakashi lying on the ground a distance away.

He growled louder, but underneath the mask one couldn't see whether or not his face changed. A billow of steam emerged from underneath his mask, and he then released a devastating roar of anger, his body glowing with red reiatsu.

His clenched fist opened, and his black Zanpakutou flew towards him from across the room He grasped the flying blade roughly, swinging it horizontally in the process. He swung it downward, the blade charged with a heavy reiatsu. A second later, and the ground and wall of the section of the building behind him had collapsed into pieces, exploding outward.

That seemed to jolt Orihime right out of her shock, and she cried out as the force of the blow pushed her off to the side. Nelliel winced, but regained her bearings. Hopefully, he wouldn't turn his rampage on her.

"_He can clearly use Shunpo in that state. I have to be on guard, and..._" she was cut off from her thoughts, as Ichigo flashed out of his existence, slipping through her Pesquisa once again and appearing right behind her. The flashing movement didn't make a whooshing sound that time. Instead, it was reminiscent of a boom and static.

"_What?! But, that was Sonido!"_ she couldn't help but think, as Ichigo mindlessly swung his blade at her with an incredible amount of force. The sound barrier broke as Nelliel got her lance up just in time to block it, the force of the strike almost jarring her weapon from her hand. The air conjured up by the blade created a torrent that displaced the rubble around the room.

More of the building began to crumble underneath Ichigo's spiritual pressure alone. He roared again, before he oriented his horns directly at Nelliel.

"Stop it, Ichigo! It's me... it's Nel!" she cried, trying to appeal to the Shinigami within the Hollow. Alas, Ichigo seemed to be completely deaf to her pleas, as a red and white Cero appeared on the tip of his horns.

It took less time to charge than normal, and before she knew it, an _absurdly_ powerful Cero was blasted straight from Ichigo's horns directly towards Nelliel. Nelliel's instant reaction was to try and absorb it, but she then realized the sheer strength of the Cero.

An explosion of flames engulfed the former Tercera. The smoke began to clear, before Nelliel stumbled out of the blast, panting and gasping for breath. Her body was badly singed.

"Lanzador Verde!" she gasped out with lungfuls of soot. She prepared to throw her lance, but Ichigo appeared within her guard yet again and grasped her right arm with a bone-crushing force. His black blade twirled in the air as he prepared to slice off the former Tercera's arm.

Before he could do so, a golden, triangular shield suddenly appeared in front of the Hollowfied Ichigo. He shattered it easily with his sword, but it prevented him from severing Nelliel's arm. The female Arrancar used the opportunity to flash away before Ichigo could recover and attack again.

Over to the side, Orihime had focused her shield over Nelliel, a look of determination set upon her face. Her clothes were in tatters, and her face was dirty, but she looked ready to try and reach Ichigo.

"K-Kurosaki-kun..." she said again. Tears pricked at her eyes, and Ichigo flashed over to her, holding his blade at arm's length. He was ready to attack her.

"**Chad... dead.**"

Underneath the Hollow exterior, a raspier, deeper version of Ichigo's voice muttered those two words over and over again. Occasionally, he mentioned Kakashi, but Chad's name rang true. He angled his blade at Orihime's death, not being able to tell friend from foe in his blind vengeance.

Orihime froze in fear; she hadn't been this up-close to the Hollowfied Ichigo, and for the first time she could truly see how terrifying his visage was. Ichigo tightened the grip on his blade, before he let loose another roar. Orihime screamed, and placed her hands over her ears, her eardrums threatening to burst under the loud noise.

Ichigo drew his sword to the side, apparently ready to slice clean through Orihime. Even if she wasn't petrified with fear, the blade was coming down far too fast for her to ever avoid it.

A surge of blue reiatsu in the form of an arrow flew by, knocking the blade clean out of Ichigo's hand. Ichigo growled a little louder, before he turned his attention away from Orihime.

Another blue arrow flew towards Ichigo's body, but it bounced uselessly off his extraordinarily tough skin. That only served to make Ichigo even angrier, and he held his sword out in the direction of the new arrival.

"Inoue-san!" cried a voice. One second later, and Ishida Uryuu had appeared next to the downed Orihime, and with a few agile steps of Hirenkyaku, had moved her out of harm's way, just before Ichigo's blade crashed into the ground, creating a large crater where Ishida was before.

"Ishida-kun..." Orihime whispered, as she was picked up and moved courtesy of Ishida. The bespectacled Quincy looked at the orange-haired girl, before he narrowed his eyes and faced Ichigo.

"Ishida-kun... Kurosaki-kun is-"

"Yeah, I know. I came as soon as I felt Sado-kun and Kakashi-san's reiatsu disappear. I can tell already that Kurosaki lost his mind and entered a rampage because of that." Ishida explained.

He looked away from Ichigo, noticing the wounded Nelliel. He turned back to Ichigo again, and pulled back on his bow, thoroughly ready to engage Ichigo in battle.

* * *

Ulquiorra's eyes narrowed as he and Naruto Sonido'd through the sands of Las Noches. Naruto flashed ahead of the Quinta Espada, coming down to rest on a collapsed pillar. Ulquiorra landed right beside him.

"Amazing... Kurosaki Ichigo's reiatsu continues to increase. The fact that he was hiding such a state never fails to amaze me." Ulquiorra commented. He remembered how disappointing Ichigo was in battle to him; it didn't really make sense that he would be hiding such a powerful state.

"He's not actually in control of that state, Ulquiorra. It's obvious that his heightened emotional state in response to his friend's death triggered some kind of "Hollow" that exists within him." Naruto stated.

"If I may ask, Naruto, what was the point of having Kurosaki Ichigo take on such a form? It appears to be doing nothing more than causing trouble for Las Noches," Ulquiorra said.

Naruto looked back at the dome where Kurosaki had transformed. Another explosion of dust and reiatsu was occurring over there, this time by none other than Nelliel.

"Control, Ulquiorra. You said it yourself... there was a high possibility that the kid's power could destroy him someday. That day happened to be today. If we can keep that "Hollow" on a leash, then our own power will inevitably increase, we can better fight the Soul Society this way," Naruto explained. He gestured to the throne room of Las Noches, where the portal to Karakura Town was being opened.

"That gateway is to Karakura Town in the human world, which is not our destination. However, a gateway like that will also be used to enter Soul Society from Karakura Town. I'm having Szayel analyze the data on that portal as we speak, so we may invade Soul Society at our leisure."

Naruto stopped at another pillar along the plain, Ulquiorra once again mimicking him. He lifted his hand gingerly, absentmindedly noticing that it was far different from when he was a Vasto Lorde.

"Ulquiorra, have you noticed anything strange about our Arrancar forms?" he said, more to himself than to Ulquiorra. Ulquiorra was likely getting what he was saying.

"Yes, I have..." Ulquiorra said.

"Right, ever since our evolution into Arrancar all those years ago, I can't help but feel that the transformation was never worth it. The evolution into Arrancar was supposed to help us gain greater power, but the Bola de Evolución has only minimally increased our powers from when we were Vasto Lorde," Naruto explained.

"Perhaps the Hougyoku-created Arrancar are different?" Ulquiorra mused.

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. Back when I still ruled the Reino Animal, I had Szayel perform some medical tests on reiatsu, reiryoku, and DNA, while doing more tests on the Bola de Evolución. The maximum capacity that the Bola can Arrancarize is grievously low. Let me give you an example." Naruto mused. Ulquiorra raised an eyebrow.

"Since I became an Arrancar, my reiatsu and DNA is 96.94% Hollow, and a mere 3.06% Shinigami. I am far from a perfect Arrancar, and I am possibly the most perfect Arrancar that can be created using the Bola de Evolución. Theoretically, a perfect 50% Hollow 50% Shinigami hybrid should be impossible to create, but the Hougyoku should at least be more powerful than the Bola de Evolución." Naruto said.

"But, that is incorrect. Szayel also ran some tests on a Hougyoku-created Arrancar a few months ago, but its level of reiatsu was about the same percentage as my own. 96% Hollow and 4% Shinigami. Similarly, the level of power that was gained via the Hougyoku was fairly miniscule. Why would this be, when the Hougyoku is such a more powerful instrument..." Naruto wondered.

They flashed away again, and this time Aizen's personal chambers were in sight. The portal to Karakura Town would be at the very top, but Naruto was going to climb the tower and kill Aizen before he could begin this ridiculous little war.

"The answer is simple, Ulquiorra. Aizen has probably the most powerful tool ever known to both Hollow and Shinigami, and he's preventing the full usage of it. In other words, he's holding back our true potential..." he claimed. He continued to explain.

"A few months ago, Aizen created the most advanced Shinigami-Hollow hybrid in Tousen Kaname. Just a few days ago, he created Wonderweiss using the Hougyoku, who is the most advanced Arrancar thus far. But, Wonderweiss is a special Arrancar. Aizen needs to have him powerful in order to be able to face the old man in combat and eliminate his Zanpakutou. The fact that Aizen removed Wonderweiss' rational thinking is because he doesn't _want_ the Arrancar to become too advanced, regardless of what Soul Society believes on this matter. This is proof that Aizen has the capability to advance the Arrancar even farther, but he doesn't..." he said sagely, looking at Ulquiorra, who was holding onto every word.

"He knows that he needs to keep us in check, have our powers limited. The ten Espada right now have a collective power inferior to that of the thirteen Captains, and not just due to numbers. Aizen simply wants us to be able to fight the Captains, not triumph over them. He wants to make sure that our power is limited in case we rebel. Six of the Espada, including myself were a part of the Reino Animal. I'm sure he's aware of the fact that we're working against him. He might even be expecting us in the throne room right now."

A few minutes later, and Naruto and Ulquiorra had touched down directly in front of the entrance to the large tower, where at the top they would find Aizen, as well as Gin and Tousen most likely.

"Are you ready?" Ulquiorra asked. Naruto grinned at him. He fiddled with his Zanpakutou for a little while, making sure it was secure on his hip.

"Of course, Aizen won't know what hit him. While I'm taking care of the bastard himself, all you have to do is hold off Ichimaru and Tousen if they happen to be there. Szayel of course is working on the portal, I've got Grimmjow and Nnoitra causing a ruckus in Las Noches in approximately five minutes, and Harribel should be on her way to provide back-up." Naruto explained.

"And the other Espada?" Ulquiorra asked.

"I'm sending Harribel to greet with Starrk, but he's more than likely in the know about this incident already. Baraggan won't be too happy seeing me in charge, but he should have no problems about getting rid of Aizen. That leaves Zommari and Yammy. Yammy will follow you regardless, but he won't like it when he gets demoted back to Décima. We might have to beat his bitch-ass. Zommari though is very loyal to Aizen. We may just have to kill and replace him, but hopefully he makes it through the change without causing a ruckus..."

"That's unlikely..." Ulquiorra snarked. Naruto smirked at him, but Ulquiorra didn't see it, as Naruto's face became dimmed after the two Arrancar had entered the dull lighting of the staircase.

"Here we go, Ulquiorra..." Naruto said dramatically, as the staircase spiraled ever upward towards the chamber directly above the throne room, where the portal to Karakura Town was.

The two Arrancar walked through the entryway into the wide room. They walked down the aisle designated by the lack of pillars, before Naruto spotted the distortion of space at the top of the final staircase. Blue skies and human buildings; it was a legitimate portal to Karakura Town. Naruto then noticed the presence of three reiatsus at the top of the stairs.

"_So... they're all here. Ulquiorra, looks like you're going to have to handle Ichimaru and Tousen. You'd better not disappoint me..._" Naruto thought to himself.

The three former Captains had their backs turned to them, but they were clearly aware of their presence. Aizen breathed in deeply, before he addressed the two intruders.

"Welcome... Naruto, Ulquiorra. May I ask what the two of you are doing here?" Aizen asked affably. Naruto sneered in hatred at the Shinigami, releasing his orange reiatsu to its fullest extent.

"You know exactly why I'm here, Aizen..."

"True. I've known since the day I met you that you would attempt to kill me, likely at a pivotal moment like this. It's all a part of your nasty behavior, _Hollow_. The desire to rule is ingrained deeply within you, and you cannot stand the fact that I stripped you of your kingdom. Similar to Baraggan's situation, and although I expected a rebellion from him as well, I always knew you were by far the most violent, brutal, passionate, and emotional of all my Arrancar. You were the most likely to betray me in the end, betray anyone who was superior to you. That's why your aspect of death is just that: betrayal."

Aizen turned away from the gateway to Karakura Town, and his commanders followed suit. He walked down the steps smoothly, while Tousen gripped his Zanpakutou, ready to draw it.

"What I _didn't _expect however, that you would go along with this, Ulquiorra. I clearly underestimated your loyalty for your old commander, and it seems that none of it transferred to me," Aizen said.

Ulquiorra said nothing.

"You'd be surprised, Aizen. I've got four more Espada on my side with this. Your army is in tatters," Naruto said. For the first time, Aizen looked a little bit bothered.

"It seems we are going to be entering battle without two of our Espada. No matter, we have enough power to defeat the Gotei 13 anyway. Gin... Kaname, we are going to kill these two quickly, and then go meet our enemies," Aizen ordered. The other two Captains nodded, but Tousen was looking restless. He had drawn his Zanpakutou ahead of everyone else, and looked even more agitated than usual.

"Aizen-sama... please allow me to end his life!" he shouted, drawing his sword and pointing it at Naruto. Aizen frowned at Kaname, who balked underneath Aizen's gaze.

"No, Kaname. I will be the one to fight Naruto. You and Gin make sure to kill Ulquiorra. This should not take long..." Aizen said. Gin and Tousen nodded in underneath, and they leaped down the staircase past Naruto, over to where Ulquiorra stood behind the scenes.

Aizen had already drawn his Zanpakutou, Kyouka Suigetsu gleaming in the light. He regarded his opponent, and then let a smooth and cool smile enter his face.

"You're taking this so seriously... I would've thought you wouldn't need to dirty your hands," Naruto mocked. Aizen knew that Gin and Tousen would be no match for him. Hopefully, Ulquiorra could at least hold his own against the two of them until he was finished.

"Though..." he said, letting his smile drift into a lazy smirk. He twisted his body towards the left, placing his left hand underneath his hip, while his right hand grasped the red hilt of his Zanpakutou.

He drew his cutlass-like Zanpakutou from its sheathe slowly, the blade obscuring some of his face. He grinned as he pulled the tip out, before he pointed the sabre at Aizen.

"I'm not going to mess around here, either," he grinned. The gleam of Naruto's sword matched that of Aizen's. Aizen eyed the Zanpakutou in admiration, even as he held his own sword in its ready position.

"You're going to use your Zanpakutou, Naruto? That's a rare occurrence. Though, I can see that you have no intention of releasing your Zanpakutou. You can't hope to defeat me without it..." Aizen said.

"Are you sure? _I_ can see that _you_ have no intention of using your Bankai. That is, if you even _have _it in the first place!" Naruto taunted, remembering the powers of Kyouka Suigetsu.

Aizen smiled a little more and released his reiatsu, before he disappeared with Shunpo. Naruto matched the speed with Sonido, and their two blades met each other halfway.

* * *

The arrow that Ishida fired once again bounced uselessly off of the sturdy mask armor that Ichigo was wearing. The action only seemed to make the transformed Shinigami angrier, and he rushed Ishida at a rate the Quincy couldn't even hope to follow.

Ichigo grasped his wrist tightly, and before anyone could blink, his blade flashed vertically over Ishida's wrist. The Quincy cried out in pain as his right hand was severed completely, making his bow useless.

"Kurosaki-kun..."

"Ishida-kun... your hand," Orihime said, as Ishida skidded right past her. Despite one stump of a hand, he used his remaining left one to pull a Seele Schneider from his belt. He twirled the Quincy blade on his finger, before he held it like a sword. He couldn't fire it, so this was his only option.

"It's alright. I've already stopped the bleeding. More importantly, Inoue-san... you need to get out of here quickly. Kurosaki can't tell friend from foe in this case." Ishida said.

"But, but... Ishida-kun," Inoue protested, as Ishida stopped kneeling and got to his feet.

"It's okay, Inoue-san. I'll hold him off somehow," Ishida said with an air of finality. The teenager looked over, and noticed Nelliel standing a good distance away. The Arrancar flashed over, and Ishida raised an eyebrow.

"You're... Nel-chan?" he asked in shock, noticing the several similarities between Nel and the adult, buxom woman that now stood before him. Nelliel smiled lightly.

"Yes."

"You are... different than I remember," Ishida said lamely. Nelliel's smile turned sad.

"Well, let's just say... because of a very emotional event, I was able to regain my true form. But, ever since that happened, Ichigo has gone out of control. I'm not strong enough to stop him, even in my Resurrección," Nelliel commented.

"What should we do, then?" Ishida asked. Nelliel stood tall and strong, holding her lance ahead of her. She looked at the part where Ichigo had struck his blade. It was cracked badly, which meant that her lance wouldn't last much longer.

"Right now... we just have to hold him off. Prevent him from moving to another part of Las Noches, and see if we can somehow return him to normal. That's the only chance we have right now," she said. Ishida nodded.

"I guess that is what we're going to have to do," he conceded, testing the Seele Schneider in his hand. He was not a swordsman by any means, so he didn't know how long he would last.

Ichigo swung his sword one last time, and that seemed to be the breaking point for the building. It had taken too much damage in the various fights that had occurred in the vicinity, and when a powerful rampaging Hollow on the loose, it was enough.

The building collapsed, pieces of rubble jarring both sides of the conflict and preventing them from exchanging blows once again. Nelliel grabbed Orihime and placed her across her back, while Ishida leaped to avoid the falling rubble. Nelliel followed suit, but Ichigo didn't think properly enough to avoid the rubble, and he fell along with the building.

A few seconds later, and the group of three reappeared outside, as the building collapsed on Ichigo. They knew it wouldn't be able to keep him down for long though, and what had just happened gave him the perfect opportunity to rampage across Las Noches.

The building exploded into dust, and when the smoke cleared Ichigo was standing there, looking completely unharmed. He drew his sword to him again, turning in the opposite direction of where the company was. Apparently, he couldn't sense anyone's reiatsu in that state, so now he was just mindlessly rampaging, looking for a target. Something to take his anger out on.

Nelliel looked stricken.

"We need to stop him, before he destroys all of Las Noches at this rate."

* * *

Okay, chapter done. It's a little short, but if I tried to make it longer, all I'd end up doing is shove unnecessary filler into the Chapter, so I'm ending it here now.

**Translations and Other Features**

Seele Schneider: Soul Cutter

Until next chapter,

_**Alban55**_


	45. Destruir un Dios

**uzumakialayinagider**: Seireitei's power lies in its Captains, Vice-Captains, and high seated officers but there are more duties than just fighting. All of that cannon fodder is responsible for the trafficking of souls to the afterlife, and the elimination of low-level Hollows. How just 3,000 soldiers can police the entire world is beyond me.

**Lednacek**: It's not exactly smart to destroy a place that you're residing in.

So it turns out I can leave a review to my own stories. I did it for last chapter, in the most blatant display of self-congratulations and ass-kissing eva!

* * *

Chapter 45: Destruir un Dios

The blades of Aizen and Naruto met, and a torrent of air and reiatsu blasted the vicinity. In terms of raw strength, the two of them were unmatched. They used a reiatsu that was almost otherworldly, and their attacks were so strong that they almost caused in a ripple in the space around them. Naruto ground his blade against Aizen's, trying to knock the blade out of his hands. But Aizen's grip was too strong, and he managed to turn the attack back on Naruto all too easily.

"_Amazing. Every time I see either one of them in battle, I can hardly believe my eyes..._" Ulquiorra mused, as the two combatants flashed several times, their blades meeting once again as they tried to out-speed one another. Naruto was faring much better in this department.

Aizen's reiatsu was pure, controlled, and it sucked the life out of anyone not strong enough to resist. But Naruto's was so turbulent, wild, and powerful that he seemed to outclass the ruler of Las Noches in pure reiatsu, and his Sonido seemed to trump Aizen's Shunpo ever so slightly. Despite this, the Shinigami had his own advantages. He could read Naruto's attacks better than Naruto could read his, and overall seemed to be better in swordsmanship. It was an even battle in a whole new way, though neither opponent seemed worried.

"_Naruto's trying to outclass him in sheer power. For once, he isn't trying to trick his opponent. He knows that Aizen is unlikely to fall for such tactics at his level of skill_..." Ulquiorra analyzed. The two were still trying to outspeed each other, and Ulquiorra could barely see the combat as they seemed to flash in and out of existence in split-second intervals.

"Aaaahhh, they're really going wild over there, aren't they?"

Ulquiorra focused on Gin, the one who had just recently spoke. He was standing just opposite Ulquiorra, with Tousen at his side, while both of their bosses duelled. Ulquiorra narrowed his eyes; he was left to face the two former Captains alone, at least until Harribel arrived with back-up.

"That's enough, Ichimaru... These two are now considered traitors. For Aizen-sama's sake..." Tousen said beside him, though he trailed off as he placed a hand on his blade.

He drew it quickly, angling it as he pointed the sword at Ulquiorra.

"...we must eliminate them!" he said zealously. Gin looked at Tousen, the smile of course never fading from his face. He never made a move to draw his Zanpakutou, but instead placed a hand on the back of his head.

"If you say so, Tousen-san. Would ya mind going ahead of me; I don't feel too comfortable fightin' a guy who's supposed to be our comrade, so I'll just sit this one out. You should be more than enough for him anyway, especially with _that_..." Ichimaru said casually. Naruto and Aizen's fight was the only noise that could be heard, as Tousen stared blankly at Gin with his blind eyes The tension could be cut with a knife.

"..."

"...Very well," he said finally, realizing that he wasn't going to get any help on this one. Ulquiorra mimicked Tousen, drawing his blade lightning fast and holding it at his side.

"You may be a commander of Las Noches, but that doesn't mean you're above the Espada in terms of combat ability..." Ulquiorra said. Tousen said nothing, and only "stared" at Ulquiorra in scrutiny. He slashed his sword to the side, before he held it at a ninety degree angle to his right. Ulquiorra raised an eyebrow; he knew that stance.

"Cry, Suzumushi," he stated, before a black-and-white wave emanated from his Zanpakutou and spread out over the area. Ulquiorra closed his eyes and released his reiatsu. Tousen's Shikai was trying to override his hearing and knock him unconscious. He heard a high-pitched buzzing noise, but his reiatsu deafened it to him, and Tousen's Shikai was rendered ineffective.

Ulquiorra's eyes snapped open as he felt Tousen move, and his blade moved up just in time to block Tousen's, which was once again in its sealed state. Ulquiorra pulled back for a split-second, charging reiatsu into his blade. He then thrust his sword forward in a flurry of quick jabs, reiatsu shooting off from every stab.

Tousen avoided them all deftly, swaying along with the attacks naturally as if he wasn't even blind. When Ulquiorra paused in his assault, Tousen thrust forward, his blade angled straight for a stab into Ulquiorra's head. Ulquiorra's blade shot up on reflex, blocking the deadly attack. The two blades ground against each other, and Tousen roared in struggle.

Ulquiorra's feet caved into the ground, as the former Captain pushed the Quinta Espada back further and further, until Ulquiorra's back was up against the wall.

Tousen mimicked his stance when he had released his Shikai earlier, but this time he also wrapped his blade around the front side of his head. A blur of illusionary blades created a trail, all of them pointed at Ulquiorra.

"Suzumushi Nishiki: Benehiko!" Tousen cried, as Ulquiorra was pinned against the wall. The illusionary blades materialized into solid shapes, all pointed horizontally at Ulquiorra.

The hundreds of blades flew forward at a ludicrous speed, impacting the wall, and going directly through it like it was butter. Ulquiorra flashed away just in time, and Tousen narrowed his blind eyes.

"_From behind..._" he thought, as he swung his blade upward. It met against metal, as Ulquiorra appeared in mid-air, and tried to attack Tousen's backside.

The stoic Espada put his other hand on his blade, creating more force as he began to push through Tousen's defense. Tousen noticed this as his blade was getting cut through, and he lurched to the left.

Ulquiorra retracted one hand from his blade, keeping the momentum as his blade swung down and left him open. Despite that, he used his free arm to charge up a Cero, deflecting the strike from Aizen and initiating a counter-attack that put Tousen on edge.

Tousen bounced away from the Espada, allowing Ulquiorra to turn the tides and go on the offensive. His hard, fast, and heavy blows were clearly too much for a sealed Tousen, but the former Captain held his own anyway.

All throughout this, neither combatant said absolutely anything. Gin was on the sidelines idly, watching the two battles take place with a passing degree of interest. Ulquiorra was faring much better than he had expected.

Tousen bit his lower lip; he was beginning to get frustrated. First, Gin wouldn't help him at all, and now he was being overwhelmed by someone he should have authority over. Being the Quinta Espada, Ulquiorra was forbidden to release his Zanpakutou underneath the dome of Las Noches, but the two rebelling Arrancar had already disregarded the rules, so Tousen couldn't be sure that he wouldn't break that one either.

He had tried his Shikai on Ulquiorra, which failed to affect the Arrancar. He couldn't use his Bankai in such a closed space; it would either draw in both Aizen and Naruto, or there just wouldn't be enough space to perform it anyway. Which meant that he was left with one option.

"I'm surprised. Never in my wildest dreams would I imagine that I would be forced to use my newfound power before the battle even started. . ." Tousen mused, as he put his hand to his face. Ulquiorra's eyes widened slightly; he had seen that stance before.

An explosion of deep purple reiatsu emerged from Tousen, so much that it made Naruto and Aizen halt in their battle. Naruto looked on as the smoke clear, and he growled in irritation.

"So... you did do that to him, after all?" he mused. Aizen simply looked at him smugly.

"I knew you were holding out on the rest of us... he's a more perfect Hollow-Shinigami hybrid, isn't he? You used the Hougyoku on him?" Naruto asked. He didn't even need Aizen to answer him on that one. When the smoke cleared, a new and improved Tousen was standing, ready for battle. His braids hung loosely from a blank Hollow mask that revealed no portion of his face.

"Oh, dear..." Gin mused over to the side.

Ulquiorra narrowed his eyes; Tousen's reiatsu was much stronger than before. Ulquiorra blinked, and Tousen was already in front of him, going in for a deadly downward slash that would no doubt be fatal.

Ulquiorra grunted and brought his blade up to block the strike, the force making the blade clatter in his eyes as he awkwardly moved back. A faint ringing sound reverberated throughout the area. Tousen was using his Shikai on top of his Hollowfication. The Espada disappeared in a split-second, reappearing wherever it looked to be clear. Tousen was on his trail the entire time.

Ulquiorra appeared in the awnings of the building, but Tousen also appeared directly above him, getting underneath his guard. He brought an elbow down on the Espada. Ulquiorra grunted; his Hierro was holding up, but damage was still done.

The force propelled him down to the ground, but before he could land in a crater, Tousen appeared before him, and kicked him upwards diagonally so he would fly into the opposite wall from where he came from.

The wind pressure prevented Ulquiorra from regaining his stance, but at the last minute he was able to plant his feet on the wall and minimize the damage he had taken from that attack.

Tousen appeared right before him with his sword at the ready, and sparks flew as Ulquiorra once again just barely blocked the attack. Tousen retaliated by shoving his blade forward in a thrust, going straight for Ulquiorra's brain. Ulquiorra shoved his hand out, redirecting the blade over to the side, despite the fact that he took some minor injuries from touching the blade.

The blade stabbed into the wall, breaking it and allowing chunks of marble or rock to fall to the floor. Ulquiorra counterattacked by stabbing his own blade forward. But the Hollowfied Tousen was prepared; he flipped over the blade using astonishing agility, and kicked Ulquiorra in the face.

The recoil produced a crater in the back of the wall, which Ulquiorra was thrust into by the blow. Tousen flipped back into mid-air, before he rushed Ulquiorra with a jab that would no doubt impale him, even with his thick Hierro.

Ulquiorra disappeared away, planting his feet on an untouched portion of the wall near the corner of the room.

He heard the whoosh of a Shunpo/Sonido from down below, and instinctively knew where Tousen would attack from next. Grasping the hilt of his Zanpakutou, he swung the blade to the right as hard as he could, and as he followed through, it met with Tousen's own blade.

Tousen wasn't prepared for that strike, and Ulquiorra was able to get underneath his guard completely, and lop off his left arm. Tousen, to his credit, didn't roar in pain and merely gave a slight flinch, though he retreated away from Ulquiorra, landing on the ground in front of Naruto and Aizen.

Gin smirked during the whole ordeal.

"It would seem that your Hollowfication has not made you as powerful as you believed, Tousen," Ulquiorra said, not even mocking the former Captain. It was as if he were stating a simple fact.

Tousen held up his arm, an expression not being visible due to his blank mask. The stump that was his arm glowed with a little bit of reiatsu, and after a few seconds, a new arm had appeared from where the old one had gotten cut off.

Over to the side, Gin smirked wider as he realized that Tousen would likely need a little help against his foe in this state. He pulled a hand out of his long sleeves, and grasped the hilt of his Zanpakutou.

His wrist was grabbed by a powerful grip before he could even think to draw it, and a blade was placed against his neck faster than he could react to properly.

"Ahh... sorry, Aizen-taichou, Tousen-san, it would appear that I got caught again..." Gin said casually, as his assailant tightened their grip on his wrist. Gin panned his eyes upward, and could make out the form of Tia Harribel standing directly behind him.

Aizen lowered his blade, before bringing it back up to block another of Naruto's strikes. He looked at Harribel dispassionately, before bringing the same look towards Gin.

"... It doesn't matter," he said finally.

"How many of the Espada are going to betray Las Noches?" Tousen asked, anger tinging into his voice at yet another betrayal by an Espada, a relatively high one at that.

"Six... but I'm on my way to getting the rest of them on my side," Naruto said, answering Tousen's question. That seemed to arouse a little bit of suspicion within Aizen, as he finally realized that his followers weren't quite so loyal.

Tousen grit his teeth, and his Zanpakutou shook in his hand. A loud noise emanated from his mask, and the Hollow material began to crack, until Tousen's mouth was visible underneath the entire thing. The deep purple reiatsu covered his body once again, and he raised his sword before tilting it downward.

"Then I will bring those traitorous Espada to justice for the sake of Aizen-sama, using my Resurrección!" Tousen said zealously, as he channeled the purple energy into his blade. Naruto and Ulquiorra's eyes widened at his words.

"Resurrección!? What the fuck!?" Naruto roared, in mixture of both surprise and anger. Tousen's masked face didn't give any indicators on whether or not that was true, but the reiatsu was similar to an Arrancar's sword release.

"I am above all the Espada! I will now put an end to this pointless rebellion so we may go on to Karakura Town uninhibited..." Tousen remarked, as his reiatsu peaked.

"Suzumushi Hyakushiki!" he shouted.

"... Grillar Grillo!" he finished.

A dark purple void of reiatsu engulfed Tousen, and even Naruto narrowed his eyes at the sheer density of the energy. The reiatsu was practically viscous, covering Tousen like some sort of sludge. But the sludge began to take shape and solidify into a form.

Wisps of the stuff thinned out until they became insect legs, with long and sharp digits jutting out from the ends. Despite being an insect, the new Tousen was hairy, with two antennae sticking out of his back, and short fly wings emerging just below them. Tousen lifted his face to regard Ulquiorra, a insectoid mask covering all but his mouth.

The most striking thing about the Resurrección were the round, bulbous eyes of the mask, which were currently closed. Carefully, Tousen opened them, showing a concave orange sclera, with an almost-shaped green pupil in the center.

Ulquiorra regarded it dispassionately. It _was_ hideous, but as a Hollow he had seen things far uglier than an overgrown bug. However, it didn't take long for Tousen to speak, in a much higher unnatural voice.

"I can see..." he said, as he noticed all eyes were on him.

"I can see! I can see! **I CAN SEE!**" Tousen guffawed, as he lost all sense of himself.

"**THIS IS THE WORLD! THIS IS LAS NOCHES! THIS IS AN ARRANCAR!" **he shouted, turning his head towards Ulquiorra, before turning it around to where Gin was.

"**AND THAT IS A SHINIGAMI! I CAN SEE!**" he finally cut off his rambling to turn to where Ulquiorra was. The Espada was looking dispassionately at him, in spite of the overwhelming advantage Tousen had in his release.

"And I assume... you are Ulquiorra?" Tousen remarked. He flexed his claws, before getting into whatever battle stance he could perform when he was in that state. Ulquiorra continued to stare, almost like he was looking upon a pathetic creature.

Surprisingly, instead of attacking... Ulquiorra sheathed his Zanpakutou. He closed his eyes and walked over to the side of the building, as if his job were done after that.

"What are you do-" he asked, before he cut off by a powerful slash slicing right through the top of his head. Tousen gasped in pain and alarm, before he coughed up an unhealthy amount of blood, before he plummeted towards the ground.

Ulquiorra blinked, and noticed that Naruto had taken a break in his battle with Aizen in order to practically scalp the top portion of Tousen's Resurrected bug head. He smirked casually.

"You let your newfound sight go to your head, idiot! You couldn't even sense me coming from behind... just like... _THIS!_" he cackled with glee, as Aizen went in for an opportunistic strike while Naruto was occupied. It was blocked easily.

"You can finish him off if you want, Ulquiorra! I've got to go back to handling this fuckhead!" he shouted, as Ulquiorra sighed. He drew his sword again, and looked down at the fallen Tousen. He was barely conscious, and there were still a few remnants of his Hollow powers that he had used before. All in all, he looked resigned to whatever had happened.

Ulquiorra didn't even give him the chance to speak, and simply plunged his Zanpakutou into Tousen's brain, effectively ending the fight...

"Ahhhhh-ah... looks like they got Kaname..."

* * *

The splattering of blood and brains could be heard in the hallway as Tousen's head was slashed open by Ulquiorra's blade, but it was almost drowned out by the fighting of Naruto and Aizen in the exact center of the room.

Naruto grinned wildly as the serene look on Aizen's face never faded. The sound of death was pleasing to Naruto, but Aizen obviously wasn't even phased that one of his commanders had just been taken out.

"Looks like one of the commanders got taken out before we even reached the fighting. Ain't that going to be something to mess up your plans?" Naruto goaded.

"...Hardly." Aizen responded, pressing the attack back on Naruto. Naruto smirked, as he flipped into the air, stabbed his sword downwards while blocking the upward strike from Aizen.

"I figured you'd say that."

He swung his sword upward, getting into the momentum as he hovered in mid-air, before he launched a testing Bala straight towards Aizen. The Shinigami backhanded the orange ball away.

"Bala? Surely you can attack me with something a little stronger than that?" Aizen said, raising an eyebrow. Naruto responded by appearing in front of Aizen and slashing down on him. He brought his free hand up, and in a split-second, had launched a Bala. Aizen closed his eyes and casually tilted his head to the side, avoiding the Bala easily.

Naruto smirked. He adjusted the pressure on his Zanpakutou with enough force to push Aizen back. Meanwhile, the Bala had curved around just before it had hit the wall, pinning Aizen between a sword slash from ahead, and a Bala from behind that homed in on him.

"Bala Siguiendo? A decent trick on a lower-level opponent, but all too easy to figure out..." he said, taking one hand off his blade and aiming it at the incoming Bala.

"Hadou #33: Sokatsui..." he said, as blue fire erupted from his fingertips and intercepted the Bala on its way towards. However, while that was occurring, Naruto used both hands to push his blade onto Aizen's, getting closer to breaking through his defenses.

Aizen smirked and drew back using Shunpo. However, Naruto's Sonido was slightly superior, so he was able to close to the distance on them very quickly and deliver a minor slash to Aizen's shoulder.

"Too damn slow!" he said. For the first time that day, Aizen lost the smug smile in favor of a slight frown. No one had managed to wound him in quite some time now. And using simple tactics too; it was just that Naruto's basic skills were ludicrously strong, that he could afford to use basic tactics like that and still overwhelm his opponent.

Naruto wasn't quite done yet, though. He was pressuring Aizen the best he could, ramming his blade into Aizen's defenses, looking for a way he could follow up his successful attack.

He used three successive slashes, which Aizen managed to recover and block quite easily. Aizen flashed away with Shunpo, and Naruto halted his advances in mid-air.

He grinned and held his blade horizontally while charging up energy into his head. He placed his other hand in a similar position, though he pointed his fist to the right. When he was done, he had two charged up Ceros waiting to be released. However, he breathed in and out, and the energy faded. He looked down towards the ground, seeing Aizen stand there, like he didn't even want to fight.

"_You're too cautious..._" Naruto thought, as he swung his blade downward with all the force he could muster. The air pressure impacted the ground, slashing the tiles apart while heading for Aizen.

Aizen avoided the feint attack easily, jumping into the air backwards slightly. Naruto smiled; Aizen had taken the bait. Naruto rushed forward, his Sonido allowing him to breach the distance between the two.

Their blades clashed once again, but this time Naruto had angled his blade so that the tip was pointed almost vertically, towards the ceiling. Such an action would almost certainly leave his defense weakened, but Naruto seemed to have something up his sleeve.

Aizen raised an eyebrow; he certainly knew that Naruto was up to something. He then heard a low hissing noise coming from his opponent, and his eyes widened as an orange Cero went off without any sort of warning whatsoever from the hand that was clutching Naruto's Zanpakutou.

The Cero scuffed Aizen's clothes, but otherwise didn't harm him. He had pivoted his body while still remaining in his basic stance, so he didn't Shunpo away while the Cero went off.

"Naruto, do you understand why you'll never be able to defeat me?" Aizen asked in the midst of battle. Naruto snorted at his opponent warily, before his eyes darted to the top-left corner.

"_Ah man, here he goes..." _Naruto thought.

"If you put all your hatred into beating me as your one final goal. . . I. . . as. . . . .ga. . . . be. . . ." Aizen began, as Naruto tuned him out completely. From the little bits of the speech he heard, Aizen seemed to be talking about how his hatred was just a petty excuse, and he was scared of something greater than him.

". . .a . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ."

"..." "..."

"..."

"SHUT! THE FUCK! UP!" Naruto roared, pouring all his strength into his sword and pushing Aizen off of him. The former Captain slid back in mid-air, though he regained that smug smile of his.

"Do my words anger you, Naruto?"

Naruto smirked.

"No, you see, I wasn't paying attention to anything you were saying, so I didn't catch any of that. I was just thinking that your voice is just _so_ annoying, and I already have to deal with looking at your ugly face all day. I don't need a voice to match it..." he taunted. Aizen wasn't phased.

"It makes sense that you were be angered. Those who are weaker don't understand the strength of one who is superior are very quick to fall to fear and anger when they are forced to react to them. It is a flaw of any living creature..." he mused, though Naruto wasn't paying attention again.

"CÁLLATE, PUTO!" he said, launching the other Cero that he had charged up earlier. Aizen sidestepped the thing, then flashed underneath Naruto's guard.

"Perhaps we should finish the weak attacks and move on to something bigger. . ." His hand flashed with purplish-black energy, which spiralled around his arm.

"Hadou #90: Kurohitsugi!" he said, as a black box of reiatsu surrounded Naruto. Without an incantation, it was at a mere third of its power, but Naruto was still trapped behind it.

Naruto growled for a second as he was encased behind the reiatsu, cutting off his opponent and light from entering the coffin. After that, he smirked, and charged up energy into his hand.

"Rayo Bala..." he said, as he charged up a Bala. He released the thin beam of orange light, which nailed the walls of the Kurohitsugi, and due to the superior reiatsu of the Rayo Bala, cut right through the Kidou.

Aizen heard the whirring noise of the Bala from underneath the Kurohitsugi, and he hopped out of the way as it was cut through by the laser Bala, which continued to draw a line across the floor and up the wall, nearly splitting it in half.

The structure of the Kidou collapsed into basic reiatsu, and Naruto emerged as a shadow out of the coffin, completely unharmed. He clutched his Zanpakutou tightly, pointing a finger at Aizen.

He launched another Rayo Bala straight towards Aizen, who obviously flashed out of the way of the direct attack. Naruto smirked wider, bringing his finger around as if he were drawing a line.

Aizen reappeared in mid-air, just before Naruto was done drawing his path of destruction up the walls. Aizen grunted as he saw the incoming Bala, flashing down to a safe place. It was exactly what Naruto wanted him to do.

"Too slow!" he shouted, as he flashed directly into Aizen's blind spot as he reappeared on the steps leading up to the portal to Karakura Town. Aizen had enough time to turn his head. His eyes widened substantially as he realized that Naruto's finger was pointed directly at him. In exactly a split-second, Naruto had fired another Rayo Bala from his finger.

The ray of light burned a hole straight in Aizen's shoulder before coming out of the other side. Naruto immediately withdrew his Rayo Bala to go on the offensive, not giving Aizen even the slightest chance to react.

Their blades met for the umpteenth time, but Naruto was going to press the offensive this time. Aizen just barely blocked his first strike, so Naruto could continue the attack.

While parrying Aizen's blow, Naruto's free hand shot clenched into a fist, and he punched the former Captain with all his might. Aizen brought his blade up to block it, but Naruto simultaneously went through for a quick jab with his cutlass.

Three consecutive strikes later, and Naruto had broken through Aizen's guard. While Aizen was disoriented by his heavy blows, Naruto rose his blade skyward, before he let loose with the strongest downward slash he could perform.

Aizen's blade was broken in half by the strike, and a fatal wound was delivered from his shoulder all the way to his hip. His eyes widened and shook, and he looked down at his body in disbelief.

"H-How..." he asked in shock, as he collapsed to his knees. His Zanpakutou clanged to the floor as his grip failed him, and his knees gave out on him as he collapsed, blood pouring from his open wound.

Aizen breathed heavily, blood pouring from his mouth as well. Naruto looked upon him dispassionately, a frown marred on his face as Aizen died right before his eyes.

Surprisingly, his grip tightened on his Zanpakutou.

"Who do you think you're playing?" he asked, as he turned over to where the portal was.

"Cut the damn illusion. You ain't dead yet..." Naruto said, pointing his blade at the apparent dead corpse of Aizen Sousuke. He watched it intently, even as it broke into several mirror shards, signifying that it was an illusion the whole time. He rolled his eyes, and casually put his blade behind his back, blocking an incoming strike.

"How intriguing... You managed to pick out that that was an illusion. Tell me, have you finally made a breakthrough on breaking my Shikai, Naruto?" Aizen asked, his voice coming from the real Aizen that was attacking Naruto from behind. Naruto growled.

"That's not it. You went down far too easy, fell for several simple tricks, and the manner in which you "died" was far too melodramatic. You were using Kyouka Suigetsu the entire time in our fight, though it seems. . ." he looked over to the center of the room.

"That was really Tousen who died..." he mused.

"You are correct. I in no way used Kyouka Suigetsu on Kaname. The one that Ulquiorra fought was real," Aizen explained, though Naruto wasn't convinced.

"Well, it looks like I'll have to find out for myself!" Naruto shouted, as he broke the contact with Aizen and slid back across the room. He reached into the collar of his Arrancar uniform, unbuttoning it completely and allowing his chest to be shown.

Scattered all over his chest were a series of round devices that seemed connected to both each other and the rest of his body. They were the grey color of metal, with a flat, yet round shape with a green center. The veins on his chest were engorged with blood, as an unknown result of the pieces. There were seven of them in total, but Naruto pulled back some of his blond spikes to reveal two more just above his forehead, for a total of nine pieces. They appeared to lie dormant for the time being, not serving any purpose that could be seen with the naked eye.

"Oh, hey... what are _these?_" Naruto asked, pointing to one of the devices on his chest. Aizen frowned at them, but Naruto covered his chest back up partially.

He touched one of the devices on his chest, pumping some of his reiryoku into it. The green core of the device lit up brightly, before the others began to follow suit.

His engorged veins glowed with what seemed to be a toxic green reiatsu, connecting the devices on his chest and head in a sort of green stream of reiatsu that ran underneath his skin.

"And, I'm all set," Naruto said.

"For what exactly?" Aizen asked, raising an eyebrow. "I'm well aware of what you've been doing with Szayel Aporro behind the scenes. You've been looking for a way to bypass my Kyouka Suigetsu's illusions using that invention that Szayel Aporro made. You must know about the mechanics of my Kyouka Suigetsu by now, so I'll explain," Aizen started. Naruto's eyes widened; the jig was up.

"You know by now that Kyouka Suigetsu's effect is triggered by my sword release. To go further than that, once I release my Shikai, I am allowed to control the five senses of my target to create absolute hypnosis. But, what about the details to that?" Aizen asked.

"When my target looks about Kyouka Suigetsu, a bit of my reiatsu is released into their brain. This wavelength of reiatsu directly controls the five senses, with my Shikai the "trigger" to allow that to happen Without the imprinted reiatsu, my illusions would be nothing more than simple reiatsu. The imprint of reiatsu on the brain needs to be in synchronization with my Zanpakutou in order to produce an illusion."

"I'm impressed. Because my Espada have been consistently exposed to my Zanpakutou, this was a create deal of opportunity for Szayel Aporro to figure out the qualities of my Zanpakutou, unlike Soul Society. If my observations were correct, that device that you are connected to disrupts the wavelength of reiatsu that has remained in your brain ever since you first saw my Kyouka Suigetsu," Aizen explained.

"Because I have no feedback from your senses, and my reiatsu imprint cannot control you, I cannot create any illusions. However..." he smirked, as Naruto jumped backwards, already on guard.

"Shatter, Kyouka Suigetsu..." Aizen said. Naruto's eyes widened at the change in the reiatsu. The reiatsu that his system was suppressing had reverted to the feeling of beforehand.

He looked up, and Aizen was gone. He felt a sharp pain come from his backside, and he turned away to see a heavy gash wound spilling blood from beyond his shoulder. Aizen was standing right there.

"Shit!" he said, as he swung his blade at him. Aizen gasped at the blade slashed straight through his torso, but Aizen dissolved into more shattered glass. An illusion.

Fog materialized around Naruto, and he looked around for an escape. Clones of Aizen materialized out of the fog, and Naruto looked from side-to-side. The clones did nothing, but despite that it felt like he was being run through by the real Aizen.

"No one has ever said that it is impossible for me to remove the reiatsu imprint on your brain and place a completely new one there, one that your system cannot nullify," Aizen said.

Naruto gritted his teeth so hard that they almost cracked underneath the pressure. Aizen had seen through his plan, but he forced himself to remain calm. He still had a trick up his sleeve.

"I also happen to know about the other trick that those devices are made to perform. You were surprisingly thorough with this plan, Naruto, covering all your bases by having a back-up plan was far more than I expected from an Arrancar like you..." Aizen commented, as Naruto tinkered with one of the devices on his chest. They seemed to be changing color, and the intensity of the reiatsu underneath Naruto's skin increased.

"You can adjust the power of that device in order to respond to the output of reiatsu that I decide to release from my Zanpakutou in order to create illusions. If I had truly not known about your capacity for that, I would most likely be defeated here. However..." he said. Naruto grinned as he tinkered with one of the knobs on his chest, and felt the right reiatsu burst forth from them. Aizen appeared to him from the side, and Naruto threw a careless punch over to him. Incidentally, Aizen broke out into mirror parts.

"I have already prepared for that. In order to combat your device, I have broken free of my reliance on the ritual. I may now confuse the senses of anyone I please, regardless of whether or not they have seen the release of my Zanpakutou. I truly must thank you, Naruto. You have played a most important role in advancing my evolution."

It was an illusion.

"It truly is intriguing, Naruto. You spent so much of your time figuring out how to defeat my Shikai, but when you finally seemed to have achieved that goal, you were utterly defeated. Any flawed living creature would see the unfairness of such an event. But, perhaps this is just another limitation of a living creature. The fact that I was victorious means that a higher being has decided for us who shall be the victor, and who shall be the loser. But, soon I will break those limitations, and will no longer be subject to those higher beings," Aizen said, the voice seemingly coming from nowhere.

"_Why isn't it working? Szayel and I tested this for years to make sure it would work. Aizen broke his reliance on the ritual? Is that even possible? The whole basis of his Shikai was on that? Does that mean that this system of reiatsu control is useless?" _

Those questions exploded into Naruto's mind as he desperately tried to tune the system to work. Aizen's voice was coming from somewhere he couldn't pinpoint, and it even might be an illusion in itself.

Without even using Shunpo, Aizen appeared in front of Naruto. Naruto rose to his feet, almost forgetting the important device on his chest as he would be forced to fight Aizen without it.

Aizen stood there for a moment, his blade not even out. Instead, it was sheathed completely, and Aizen didn't even look like he was ready to fight. Naruto fell into a defensive stance.

He was slashed cleanly through the torso.

His eyes widened and shook as he looked down on the deep and serious sword wound that ran down from his should to just above his hip. He fell to his knees, breathing heavily. He turned his head around, seeing Aizen standing around fifteen feet behind him, his sword pointed horizontally and covered with his blood.

Aizen had used an illusion, and gotten through his guard immediately.

Aizen turned around, before the Primera Espada collapsed onto the ground, struggling to remain conscious. Gin's smirk widened on the sidelines, and he shook his head.

"Ahhhhhh-ah, he should've expected this sort of outcome. That's what happens when anyone tries to fight ya, Aizen-taichou..." he said cryptically, before Aizen turned and regarded him.

"It means nothing, we have enough Arrancars to fight the Soul Society with. Even without our strongest one, we are more than prepared for this battle. But..." he said, pointing to Ulquiorra.

"I'm afraid I can't forgive you, Ulquiorra. You have attacked and killed Kaname; this insubordination cannot go unpunished," Aizen said. Ulquiorra stared blankly at him, before putting his hands in his uniform.

Aizen turned to look at the portal; the Shinigami had apparently made their way to the battlefield, if what the blurry display of the Ganganta-esque portal was true. He turned back to Ulquiorra.

"Now, shall we-"

Aizen was cut off as a cutlass-like Zanpakutou stabbed through him from behind.

* * *

Okay, quick announcement. The little (1)'s that I display all throughout each Chapter for translations will not be used from this point out. Rather, I'm going to translate each term by just writing it out at the bottom, instead of just corresponding each translation to a number. It's just cleaner that way.

**Translations and Other**** Features**

Suzumushi: Cricket

Suzumushi Nishiki: Benehiko: Cricked Second Movement: Crimson Flying Locusts

Suzumushi Hyakushiki: Cricket Hundredth Ceremony

Grillar Grillo: Chirping Cricket?

Hadou #33: Sokatsui: Destructive Art #33: Blue Fire Crash Down

Hadou #90: Kurohitsugi: Destructive Art #90: Black Coffin

Rayo Bala: Beam Bullet

That's it,

**_Alban55_**


	46. De Hougyoku y Maestro

**gster391**: Nope, no illusions here on Naruto's part.

**Mavs**: Okay, thanks for the suggestion. I should've changed Bala Rayo to Rayo Bala by now, but I'm keeping Grillar Grillo. I knew it was incorrect, but that's the canon name of Tousen's Resurrección, whether it was correct or not, so it wouldn't make sense to change it.

So, allow me to explain the fairly late update. I recently thought that I needed to stop fucking around and needed to go back and re-edit older chapters. When I look at them now, I can tell that there are a moderate amount of errors, and many instances where the words and overall flow are stilted and just awkward. That's unacceptable when I'm still getting a fair amount of new readers every update. I don't want to turn any of them off to these story just because my first chapter sucks. (let's be honest, it did)

One other change as well. I have toned down the controversial Chapter 31-32. The chapters are the same storywise, and it's not necessary to reread them, but it doesn't go into nearly as much graphic detail as before When I wrote it, I thought it was a great idea, but looking back at it now, I hate those chapters. It was meant to show how low Naruto had truly fallen, but I ended up writing it so over the top that it came off as just gratuitous violence. And that's bad writing.

For those of you who are against me changing it, I would like to respectfully point out that this is my story. Whether I want to keep or remove anything from this story is my decision alone. Do not comment on my decision to remove this those parts of the story, whether it be indignation over removing it or praise that I'm following the rules. I do not want to hear them.

* * *

Chapter 46: De Hougyoku y Maestro

"What?!"

Aizen couldn't help but yell that as a blade stabbed him straight through the torso. It missed his heart and any vital organs by quite a bit, but it was still a serious wound.

For the first time in the entire fight, he lost it completely. He had yelled in such a voice that wasn't befitting the all-powerful Aizen Sousuke, simply because he wasn't used to being so fallible.

He raised a hand to his chest, and pulled it back. It was covered in blood. Aizen grit his teeth in panic, placing his hands on the blade jutting out of his chest, trying to wrench it out of his chest.

He turned around to take a look at his assailant, and two things went through Aizen Sousuke's mind at that particular moment. One, how the hell did he get the jump on him? And two, how the hell did he manage to break his illusion?

Despite his heavy injury, Naruto was on his feet, smiling cheekily as his Zanpakutou impaled Aizen right through the torso. With his free hand, he caressed the place where Aizen had wounded him. He moaned orgasmically.

"Unnnhhh, it's been a long time since I've felt pain like this. I know this is Harribel's aspect, but I'm feeling the ecstasy of sacrifice right now, where I can sacrifice my flesh to _kill _you..." he said lowly, twisting the blade in Aizen's chest a little bit. The leader of Las Noches lurched in pain.

"But if that's all you want, then I'll be happy to take this wound for you..." Naruto said. A burst of strength later, and Aizen had pulled the blade out from his chest, clutching the heavy wound and moving back from Naruto in order to get some distance between them.

Naruto swung his sword to the side, clearing the blood from the blade. He held up a finger to it, feeling the life fluid with his own hands. He closed his eyes, wistfully satisfied.

"You look confused..." Naruto said, as Aizen finally looked serious.

"I take it you're not very used to confusion, are you?"

"You honestly didn't think I would try to fight you with only two layers to my plan, did you? Especially when they were as unsecretive as they were. But I added another layer to my plan, one I created even without the help of Szayel," Naruto explained, pointing to one of the devices on his chest.

"Your illusions are your ace-in-the-hole, but I noticed that there was a bit of a similarity in your Kyouka Suigetsu's illusions, and a very particular type of illusion I experienced in life..."

Naruto held up an index finger, and it glowed with orange reiatsu. He put his hands together, holding them out in front of him, the orange reiatsu glowing from both of his index fingers. It seemed to resonate with the devices all over his body.

Tendrils and wisps of chakra rose from the ground, wrapping around Naruto's midsection. The devices glowed ever brighter.

"Your illusions work similar to something called Genjutsu. Using your Shikai's special ability, you disrupt the opponent's five senses using the flow of reiryoku. There was a technique that I used in life that broke Genjutsu, but unfortunately, chakra doesn't translate to reiryoku very well, so I needed to develop a similar yet different technique to cancel out the illusions."

"I spent the last several years honing this device while all three of you were away in Soul Society, simply because then you would hardly be able to keep reasonable tabs on me. It's safe to say that I now have the ability to channel my reiryoku just as well as chakra. And that..." Naruto gestured to a certain spot.

It was where Aizen had put up an illusionary version of himself, while the real him stood safety off to the side. That is, safely until he had gotten stabbed.

"I've already cancelled that illusion you set up, and pretended to fall underneath your trap. And, I al-... DON'T FUCKING BOTHER!" he roared at the end of the statement, putting his hands together and channeling his reiryoku again.

The scene before him went hazy for a moment, and the shapes in front of him began to distort and blur. When the illusion had ceased completely, the wounded Aizen was farther away from him, and he was holding a familiar orb in his hand. The air of panic that had overcome him briefly was no longer hovering over him.

Naruto could tell he was forcing it.

"I'll commend you for your effort, Naruto. In all my experience as a Shinigami, I would have never expected anyone to have the determination and tenacity to work out such a plan. However..."

"You may be able to beat me as a Shinigami, but what would happen if I raised my status?" Aizen said slyly, opening his shirt. Naruto could hear the sound of muscles tearing, as the wound Naruto inflicted widened.

He let go of the Hougyoku, allowing it to float towards his chest. A loud squelching noise could be heard as the orb nestled its way into Aizen's chest, and the gashes around it began to glow with a deep purple reiatsu.

"The Hougyoku is beginning to respond to my thoughts..." Aizen said. Naruto noted the slightest hint of desperation in his voice. He didn't understand the meaning behind his words though, but he had the impression that it was a bold-faced lie.

"Hmm?"

"You don't know? I suppose it's understandable. Not even I knew about the _true_ power of the Hougyoku until I became its master. Someone who has never held the Hougyoku in his own hands will never be able to understand it..." Aizen looked up at Naruto.

"The Hougyoku has a will of its own. You seek the Hougyoku for its ability to remove the boundary between a Hollow and a Shinigami, but that is not the only ability of the Hougyoku. Its true ability is to grant the desires of whoever controls it..." The Hougyoku began to glow brighter, and Aizen seemed to be exerting himself a little bit, even after he had just implanted the Hougyoku in his chest.

Aizen was _forcing _the Hougyoku to respond to him, given the nature of how his reiatsu increased at such a high rate.

"Since the Hougyoku can respond to the desires of whoever wields it, naturally, it can separate the Gods..." he trailed off, as a crushing purple reiatsu washed over the area, and what appeared to be liquid Hollow mask began leaking from the Hougyoku. It was a little different than that, however.

"...from the mortals."

The material began to solidify underneath his robe, jutting out and flanking his shoulders in a tree-branch shape. More of the material hung off his robes near his feet, but Naruto noted that Aizen was looking more like a Hollow.

Naruto fired a Bala Láser in his direction, but Aizen avoided it deftly and darted towards Naruto. His Shunpo was definitely greater than Naruto's Sonido at the moment, whereas before it had been slower. He angled his blade forward in a stabbing motion, though Naruto held his own Zanpakutou horizontally, one hand on the hilt and another near the tip, which allowed him to solidly block Aizen's stab.

"You're careless!" Naruto shouted, redirecting Aizen's blade to the side, before slashing his shoulder and head three times in quick succession. Aizen staggered, but never lost his smile, as only a few seconds afterward, the white canvas was now covering the areas where Naruto had struck.

"Regeneration!" Naruto shouted, flashing away to get some ground.

"You're right, I was careless. Of course, there is no meaning in me being cautious anymore..." Aizen taunted, appearing before Naruto quickly. He struck Naruto's chest with his hand, creating a shallow cut. Naruto's Hierro prevented a deeper wound. Aizen noticed this, as Naruto was still able to retaliate and drive Aizen off.

"More... more... it's not enough," Aizen muttered to him, as the Hougyoku in his chest began to pulsate violently. His reiatsu grew even heavier, and the white material that covered him expanded even farther.

"_He's getting more and more desperate, and he's doing things he would never do in his normal state. Maybe it's all the stress that is getting to him; he's lost one of his commanders, and he still has a war to fight..._" Naruto thought to himself.

"Idiot..." Naruto muttered to himself, reappearing on the ground.

"The Hougyoku is beyond your understanding, Naruto. Since I am its master, I can use my power to evolve without limit, whenever I have the desire to do so..." Aizen said. His voice had gotten more mysterious, and with an echoic quality to it.

He was standing in mid-air, covered head-to-toe in the white canvas that only covered a few spots before. His eyes were solid, crystalline mauve orbs that resembled their source. The Hougyoku was still embedded in his chest, being the clear source of all this.

"The Chrysalis Stage... is the next level on my ascent to godhood..." Aizen proclaimed, floating down dramatically to the ground. Naruto rushed him at that moment, placing a second hand on his Zanpakutou before swinging it in a wide arc at Aizen. Aizen didn't blink, and instead his hand shot out, the palm meeting Naruto's sword. He _pushed_ the sword away, nearly jarring it from Naruto's hand in the process.

The Arrancar stumbled in place, allowing Aizen to push forward and stab Naruto right in the shoulder. Naruto winced; their roles were being reversed again. One of his anti-illusion devices fell off of his chest, and he retreated back, clutching his wound.

"While my movements are filled with careless movements because of triviality, yours are becoming filled with carelessness due to a desperate necessity. Your mind in in turmoil, and as a result your attacks will continue to become weaker until they are mere child's play..." Aizen said, looking down upon the ragged Naruto.

"I thought I told you to shut the fuck up..." Naruto muttered, to which Aizen stared at him blankly. Naruto was getting to his feet again, but that was not what was concerning Aizen at the moment.

Naruto continued to attack, and Aizen blocked and parried every single strike with an absurd amount of ease, Naruto's speed and power not being able to put a dent in his defenses.

The portal that led to Karakura Town, which had remained opened during the entire conflict, was beginning to ripple. Aizen turned around carelessly, his purple eyes watching the portal with disinterest.

"It's not quick enough..." Aizen said, his voice becoming slightly more agitated. Naruto still wasn't down for the count yet, and he grew tired of the Chrysalis Stage quickly.

He raised his white-covered hand, before he struck the Hougyoku with it lightly. He released more and more reiatsu, and the ripples made from the Hougyoku's energies increased.

"I will end this Chrysalis Stage here now, and make myself move onto the next stage."

Naruto watched on in awe as Aizen's reiatsu continued to increase, and the Hougyoku began to cycle the former Shinigami out of his Chrysalis stage. The white canvas that covered Aizen's entire body began to cracked, and pieces of the shell fell off, revealing a new and improved Aizen.

Now that he was out of the shell, Aizen could take a look at the scene using his own eyes once again. Though, there were some noticeable changes to the way he looked. His hair was longer, and his eyes had turned grey with a purple sclera, and the Hougyoku was still embedded in his chest. Not to mention, his reiatsu was palpable, much stronger than his Shinigami self. The Hougyoku was _throbbing_ in his chest.

His Zanpakutou had fallen to the ground during his transformation, and Aizen plucked it out of the ground, quick as a flash. He held it aloft so that the wounded Naruto could see his demise.

"This battle is over, Naruto. Prepare to meet your demise..." he said, walking slowly but surely towards Naruto. Naruto was still in suitable enough condition to fight, but he didn't make his move.

He watched Aizen proceed towards him slowly, and he looked down at his Zanpakutou. He then looked over to the side, where Ulquiorra stood. The other Arrancar's eyes were opened slightly more than normal. By Ulquiorra standards, that meant he was amazed by Aizen's new display of power. He looked over to Harribel, who seemed to be staring at Aizen in awe, her blade still pressed to Gin's neck. Gin was looking as calm as ever.

He sighed, before he scratched the back of his head.

After that, he pointed his Zanpakutou out in front of him, and it began to glow red. Aizen looked on with a considerable amount of interest, before he spoke.

"Oh? You're going to use it, after all? I'm honored..."

Naruto ignored him, his reiatsu increasing as he focused on his blade. His left hand was situated on the hilt, pointing the blade horizontally. He placed his right hand underneath the cutlass on the back end of the blade. He closed his eyes, allowing the reiatsu to flow into his cutlass.

His eyes snapped open, and he sneered at Aizen. He let go of his blade, allowing it to hover in mid-air, before he hit the hilt of his blade with his right hand. The blade twirled in mid-air, glowing a brighter red, before Naruto shot his hand out with deft agility and grabbed the Zanpakutou.

"Kill..."

He was cut off by a wave of reiatsu.

Deep purple reiatsu was pouring off of Aizen's body in waves, and from the look of things, he wasn't the one who was controlling it. The Hougyoku was emitting a loud hissing noise, and the glow it was giving off was a hot white instead of a deep purple.

Naruto's eyes widened. He put his Zanpakutou down, the red reiatsu from his Zanpakutou release fading. Aizen seemed to be just as shocked as Naruto was; he truly didn't understand what was happening to him.

"I... I don't understand. How? This..." the new god managed to get out. Naruto didn't really understand either, until the implication hit him at full force. It seemed to hit Aizen at around the same time.

Aizen... forced the evolution.

Naruto's expression took on an eerie, apathetic calm, and he shook his Zanpakutou before sheathing it. Slowly, he took one last glimpse at Aizen, before he turned his back on him without another word.

"WHAT'S HAPPENING? WHERE ARE YOU GOING, NARUTO?" Aizen roared out, grabbing the Hougyoku on his chest, trying to force it to stop. Naruto didn't turn around.

"Is there any need for me to answer that? You're the god here, figure it out for yourself..." Naruto muttered, as Aizen roared in pain as the Hougyoku rejected him as its master.

Ulquiorra watched the display happen with stunned silence. It was like their roles had reversed. For once, Naruto was the calm, collected individual, while Aizen was the raving madman.

The Quinta Espada knew all too well what this meant.

Naruto... no longer acknowledged Aizen.

"I'm not about to answer someone who didn't even realize that the Hougyoku doesn't recognize him as its master..."

The white canvas that once surrounded Aizen broke off, and his purple and grey eyes faded to their normal color. His hair once again shortened, and Aizen saw his true flesh once again.

"DOESN'T RECOGNIZE ME? THAT CAN'T BE!" he continued to yell.

"I know. The Hougyoku never recognized you at its master in the first place, and you just continued to force your "evolution". The Hougyoku just got tired of it eventually..."

"THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE! I KNEW WHAT THE HOUGYOKU'S WILL WAS TELLING ME! YOU'RE JUST A MERE HOLLOW; YOU KNOW _NOTHING_! YOUR LIFE IS MEANINGLESS; YOU HAVE NO PURPOSE WITHOUT ME! ALL OF YOU!"

Naruto finally turned around to face him, a slight glare on his visage. Overall, he still looked particularly disinterested with Aizen's downfall.

"You were always afraid of me, Aizen. Afraid of what I could become. I know why you're so desperate to evolve to your precious godhood; all of your basic Shinigami skills were at their highest level of what you could achieve. And me, you knew that my basic skills were already above yours, and I would continued to grow stronger. Without forcing your evolution, you would fall behind me..."

Aizen had stopped yelling, but he was still breathing heavily, a look of intense hatred directed at Naruto on his face. His body was starting to deteriorate from the Hougyoku's influence.

"UZUMAKI!" he managed to shout out.

"Aizen... you're pathetic," Naruto said, once again turning his back on Naruto. Aizen cried out in pain, desperately trying to drag himself to his feet and stop the Hougyoku. In response to that, the Hougyoku whirred and hissed, and the smell of burning flesh entered the air. Aizen's body began to glow with the white-hot energy that the Hougyoku was producing, and the brightness of the whole display forced the onlookers to shield their eyes.

The Hougyoku popped out of his chest, but it hovered in mid-air directly in front of Aizen, a white stream of reiatsu connecting the two of them together. It gave one final burst of energy, and that was the end for Aizen.

There was another burst of heavy reiatsu and a quick flash of bright light that temporarily blinded Naruto. When his vision had returned to him, Aizen was gone, reduced to dust by the rejection of the Hougyoku.

The Hougyoku itself clattered to the ground, now dormant.

Naruto allowed a smile to play upon his face, and he chuckled.

His chuckling quickly turned into full-blown laughter, as he walked up to the spot where the Hougyoku had fallen.

He whistled after he picked it up.

"Well, I'll be damned. It really _does_ have a will of its own, after all. Good thing I'm not going to be using it like Aizen," Naruto said to himself, pocketing the orb quietly.

"Okay, that's enough everyo-" he didn't finish his sentence, as he noticed a clear lack of an important presence in the room. Aizen and Tousen were both dead, and that left only one Las Noches Commander to deal with.

Though it seemed that Gin had managed to sneak his way out of Harribel's grasp brief flash of light. He was nowhere to be found after that.

"Where- Oh, never mind... he's not important, anyway. If he ever shows his face on this scene again, he will be no match for us... Ulquiorra!" Naruto suddenly called out. Ulquiorra stepped forward.

"Yes, Naruto?"

"Close that portal up! Szayel should be done with it. It's too early for us to meet the Gotei 13, and if we stall long enough they'll be able to come after us. I'm going to take Nnoitra down to the desert and see if our little weapon is a success or not..."

Ulquiorra nodded, before Naruto nodded to Harribel. She seemed a little bit confused about where Gin had gone, but that wasn't important right now. They had other concerns.

"If we're lucky, we'll have a whole new weapon at our disposal," he said, before he flashed away.

* * *

Ichigo just destroyed another building within Las Noches, making it a total of seven different structures he had destroyed on his path. No one who observed the scene knew _why_ the mad Visored was destroying everything.

The Hollowfied human roared once again, and this time his roar was tinged with a strong reiatsu. He didn't know what he was looking for, but it called for him to protect it.

There came a flash of movement, and Ichigo's attention was drawn to a figure who seemed to be hovering in mid-air, an object pointed at him. Ichigo pointed his sword over there dumbly, but he was too late.

"Licht Regen!" Ishida shouted, standing directly above the Hollowfied Ichigo and letting forth a stream of blue arrows that resembled a heavy rain. Ichigo roared at they fell on him, but when the dust cleared it was apparent that they had little to no effect on him.

Ichigo had no arrows stuck out of his body; they had all just bounced uselessly off of his armor. He swung his sword in Ishida's direction, the simple wind of the swing knocking Ishida out of the air. Before Ishida could attack, Nelliel had flashed underneath his guard, her lance poised to attack.

She thrust it forward like a drill, but like the arrows, it uselessly struck Ichigo's protective armor. She gasped in pain as Ichigo threw away his sword, and grabbed Nelliel around the neck.

His speed was unbelievable for such an unwieldy body, and his fingers were stronger than she could ever imagine. Already she could feel the life getting squeezed out of her the harder he pressed.

The centaurine Arrancar was lifted off all four of her feet, and they all kicked against Ichigo's chest. Ishida had fallen some feet away, and he was getting to his feet frantically.

"Let go of her, Kurosaki! What do you think you're doing?!" Ishida cried, rushing to Ichigo's aid. Ichigo noticed the noise, and with his free arm, levitated his sword to his hand. With a quick flick of his wrist, the sword went flying towards Ishida, burying itself in his hip.

The Quincy spasmed in mid-air as the sword propelled him backwards while causing a great deal of injury to him. Nelliel painfully turned her head to the side, regretfully watching the Quincy go down.

"_No!"_ she thought to herself. Behind Ichigo's mask, his eyes glowed with a golden-yellow, and it made his visage look all the more evil and sadistic. Still, there was a hint of mindlessness behind the whole thing; he didn't know what he was doing.

Nelliel felt her bones begin to crack, and began to wonder about this situation. How powerful was Ichigo's Hollow side, where he could grab her, a former Espada, by the neck and begin choking her as if she were no less than an ordinary human girl?

She coughed, desperately searching for breath, and closed her eyes while awaiting the release of death. When it never came to her, and the pressure began to lift from her throat, she tentatively opened her eyes again.

An orange glow was surrounding the human turned Hollow. Ichigo released his grip on her neck, allowing her to plummet to the ground, where she began sucking in air. Ichigo's animalistic roars had declined to become a calm, relaxed growl.

Nelliel's gasping had slowed to a halt, and she looked over in surprise behind Ichigo, where the source of the orange, glowing barrier stood.

Inoue Orihime was healing the crazed Visored.

A look of intense determination was set upon her face, even in her worn-out state. Her hands were held out in front of her, and the control of her Souten Kisshun was at its strongest. She made a slight grunting noise, as Ichigo stopped moving completely.

The tips of Ichigo's horns began to break off from the rest of Ichigo's body, and they disappeared, like they had never been created in the first place. Nelliel looked down, noticing that Ichigo's Hollow body was disappearing right before her very eyes, and his familiar human flesh was resurfacing underneath all of the armor.

His mask cracked and disappeared, showing his actual face once again. He was still conscious, though he seemed exhausted. His hair had shortened back towards its original length.

Nelliel sighed in relief; they had avoided a great crisis. She pondered the effects of Orihime's Shun Shun Rikka abilities, and noted how lucky they were that they were effective against Ichigo. It was probably because of a combination of Orihime's will, and the fact that Ichigo was distracted with her. If Orihime had attempted to heal him head-on while focused on her, she probably would have failed.

The orange shield faded, and Ichigo collapsed onto the ground, fully back in his human form. His clothes were completely tattered, but he got to his feet, panting heavily.

"What... what was I doing?"

Nelliel sighed in relief, and a smile played upon her lips. Orihime, however, couldn't contain her own relief. Tears of joy threatened to spill from her eyes, and her hands shook at her sides.

"K-Kurosaki...k-kun," she blubbered, rushing over to the tired Ichigo. Nelliel watched in satisfaction as Orihime embraced the bewildered Ichigo, even as he awkwardly patted the crying girl on the back.

"So, are you finally back to your old self, Kurosaki?" came another voice, who seemed to wince from the pain of speaking. Ishida had limped his way over to the scene. He was clutching a heavy wound at his side, and with his free hand he was holding Ichigo's Zanpakutou, which was covered in his blood.

Ichigo released Orihime.

"Ishida... you're..." he trailed off, noticing Ishida's wound, and the Zanpakutou in his hand. "Did I..." he said, trying to find the words. Ishida smiled, and looked away from Ichigo.

"Don't worry about it... it's nothing. A lot worse would be at stake if I took pity from _you_..." he said, putting on a tough-guy facade. He walked over there, standing in front of Ichigo and Orihime.

A flash of silver, and then blood was rushing from a vertically bisected Ishida. The two halves of the Quincy fell down, the smile still on the bifurcated halves of his face.

Ichigo and Orihime gasped, and the latter's hands flew to her mouth in shock and horror. Ichigo had gotten to his feet, his exhaustion completely forgotten, and beheld the two new arrivals.

Nelliel turned around quick as a flash; she knew that strike from anywhere. There came a loud cackle from behind the company, and the crescent-shaped blade that had sliced Ishida in half retracted, coming to its owner.

Nnoitra Gilga stood directly opposite the group, with Naruto Uzumaki standing directly behind him. Nnoitra had clearly been the one to kill Ishida, and Nelliel figured they should be thankful that Naruto had not entered the fight yet.

"Ishida-kun!" Orihime cried out in alarm, summoning her power in a desperate attempt to heal him. Nnoitra shot out his crescent blade once again, and the two fairy-like beings hit the edge of the blade.

"Really? Such a disappointment... your Hollow form had so much potential, but if it can be dispelled so easily then I have no interest in it," Naruto said, walking up to fall into line alongside Nnoitra.

"Anyway... I thought I should bring news to you guys. Aizen Sousuke is dead." he said bluntly. All three of their eyes widened, and Naruto relished in the excitement.

"Still, I wouldn't celebrate if I were you. Even if you guys did invade, Aizen at least saw a purpose in both of you. I, on the other hand, have no use for any of you now. I was thinking I would just kill the lot of you right here..." Naruto said casually.

Nelliel glared at the Primera Espada, and immediately got in between Naruto and Ichigo. She had showed a pitiful display earlier against Hollow Ichigo, but she would protect her friends right here by killing Naruto and Nnoitra.

"Ichigo... Orihime... run!" she said. Ichigo got to his feet, and with some hesitation picked up his sword out of Ishida's cold, clammy grasp. Naruto looked at Nelliel in amusement.

"What are you saying, Nel!? I can't let you fight them alone!" he said, rushing to her aid. He found out that his body was in no condition to fight at the moment.

"Ichigo... thank you for bringing me this far. Without you, I would have never regained my memories, and I would never have remembered about what must be done. But you have already achieved your objective. You have rescued your friend, and that is all that needed to be done. Your battle has ended..." she paused for a moment, and Ichigo looked contemplative.

"I know you want revenge; Naruto has caused the deaths of three of your friends. You have every reason to want to kill him, but you must think about Orihime first. You must get her to safety by whatever means are necessary. Even if you cannot escape back to the human world, run. Far away from Las Noches..."

Ichigo cast a look downwards, before Orihime placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, and he nodded.

"Thank you..." he whispered.

Turning his back to Nelliel, the two human teenagers ran in the opposite direction at the best speed the exhausted Ichigo's body would allow.

Nelliel smiled in relief, looking at her friends one final time. Her look shifted to one of anger and determination, as she beheld the two rival Arrancar staring her down.

Naruto grinned.

"Sacrificing yourself to buy time, huh?" he asked, watching the two humans get farther and farther away.

"She's not going to be sacrificing her self!" came a loud voice from somewhere in mid-air. Naruto frowned, and Nnoitra looked up, but two figures, one large and fat, and another one tall and skinny fell from the sky and landed right next to Nelliel.

"Pesche! Dondochakka!" Nelliel shouted, half in relief, and half in worry. Naruto looked bored.

"They're like bugs..." Nnoitra commented.

"Fracción trash? Oh yeah, like that's going to make a world of difference against us..." Naruto said sarcastically. Pesche narrowed his eyes at the two Arrancar; they were the mortal enemies of Nel-sama.

"We are worlds beyond that of our old selves, Naruto. Due to the increasing threat these days in Hueco Mundo, we had to become much, much stronger in order to protect Nel-sama. And now that her memories have returned to her, the time in now..." he said, holding a strange, glowing blue Zanpakutou in his hand. Dondochakka pulled out a spiked club from his mouth.

"Pesche... Dondochakka..." Nelliel said.

"I know what you're going to say, Nel-sama, but this is a battle for all three of us. All three of us were wronged that day so many years ago, and the time to extract vengeance is now. With our combined strengths, we will defeat both of them right here!" Pesche said, determination staining his voice.

Nelliel shook her head, and twisted her lance in her hand before she smiled.

"No... I understand, you two," she said.

Nnoitra cackled.

"This is fuckin' perfect. We're all reunited for another battle." It was three-on-two, but it was two current Espada versus one former Espada and two former Fracción. It was clear who had the advantage.

"I could finish this all by myself, but..." Naruto said. "I want to focus all my attention on _you_..." he said, directing his attention on Nelliel. He drew his Zanpakutou from its sheathe. Nelliel felt a rock drop in her stomach. Despite being Naruto's Fracción at one point in time, she had never seen him release his Zanpakutou, or even _use_ it in battle.

He pointed his Zanpakutou towards the sky, before bringing it crashing down towards the earth. A line of force moved its way towards Nelliel, distracting her from Naruto, who was moving in for a strike. Nelliel just barely got her lance up in time to block his attack, but Naruto was pushing the offensive, and the two combatants slid away from the scene. Naruto looked up from the battle; Ichigo and Orihime were far away now.

Nnoitra looked miffed at not being able to fight Nelliel, but focused his attention on her two former Fracción.

"This won't take long..." Naruto commented, looking back at the scene. Pesche was gargling up blood already, Nnoitra having administered a heavy wound to his torso. Nelliel looked shocked as Nnoitra followed up with another attack, thrusting his Zanpakutou into Pesche's chest. A fountain of blood erupted from his chest, and Dondochakkra rushed towards his aid. He suffered the same fate as his friend, having his strange tiki-like mask caved in from Nnoitra's Zanpakutou.

Nelliel felt tears prick at the corners of her eyes; they weren't able to survive those attacks. Pesche was already lying in a puddle of his own blood, and Dondochakka's face was crushed.

She screamed in pure, righteous fury, flashing away from Naruto. In her rage, she forgot the opponent she was supposed to be fighting, instead focusing all of her anger on Nnoitra.

She _would_ avenge her dead friends.

Nnoitra looked surprised at the speed of her Sonido, getting up his Zanpakutou to block. He didn't know if he'd be able to survive this oncoming attack. It didn't help that she was released and he wasn't.

She never got the chance...

After Nelliel had rushed Nnoitra in a fit of rage, Naruto himself flashed away at a much greater speed. He got in front of her, completely underneath her guard. He raised his Zanpakutou skyward as Nelliel halted in her advance. Orange reiatsu gleamed on the end of his blade, and the full power of that reiatsu burst forth.

An orange wave washed over Nelliel as Naruto slashed down with _all_ the force he could muster. The move completely cut Nelliel in half, and continued to slice through the ground after that, creating a fissure that cut through the sand for several hundred feet.

The bisected Nelliel turned her head one last time. She didn't even register what had happened, but she knew there was one more thing she had to make sure of it...

"_...Hmm?_" she thought right before she died.

Good, they were still running, just little specks on the landscape now...

* * *

And so ends the conflict between Naruto and Nelliel. Nelliel sacrificing herself to let Ichigo and Orihime get away, but what's left for them out there?

A lot of character deaths this chapter; I guess I should tell you right now that it's going to increase. I hope you don't mind a lot of character death, but I guess it's too late to say that now. Just to let you know, I'm not killing these characters out of spite or to bash them or anything like that. (Hell, Chad's probably my favorite of Ichigo's group, and he was the first canon Bleach character to die... I think.) This is a war after all; there will be casualties on both sides. (Unlike in Kubo's version of war, though he's been getting it right lately).

**Current Espada**

1st: Naruto Uzumaki

2nd: Coyote Starrk

3rd: Baraggan Louisenbairn

4th: Tia Harribel

5th: Ulquiorra Cifer

6th: Nnoitra Gilga

7th: Grimmjow Jeagerjaquez

8th: Zommari Rureaux

9th: Szayel Aporro Granz

10th: Yammy Llargo

I forgot to do those for the last few Chapters. Around Chapter 49-50, we'll be getting lists on the Gotei 13 side of things too.

Anyway, that's all for now.

**_Alban55_**


	47. Almas Perdidas

You know, I was going to rant about stupid crap here, but since you guys probably don't want to hear it, I won't bother.

Love the Royal Guard. As a group, I probably already like them more than the Captains, though their designs sort of remind me more of One Piece than of Bleach. Still, anyone who can trash-talk Soifon and belittle Mayuri is okay in my book.

* * *

Chapter 47: Almas Perdidas

The fake Karakura Town was silent.

No humans were around in the replica that Soul Society had constructed for the inevitable battle between Soul Society and Hueco Mundo. The town stood silent and unmoving.

Then, all of a sudden, there were flashes of high-speed movement throughout the skies of the replica town. Figures leapt off of buildings and off of the streets too, jumping into mid-air. They were ready for combat.

And they were all there...

Thirteen Captains, eleven Vice-Captains. The greatest fighters that Soul Society had to offer stood in the skies of the human world, waiting with bated breath for the storm.

Many members of the Konoha Association were there, at least the ones that held Captain or Vice-Captain rank. They were all concerned; Kakashi had entered into Hueco Mundo on his own, and they hoped he was still alive. Whether or not he returned alive would be the deciding factor on whether or not they took action.

And so... they waited.

They waited and waited for their opponents for the battle. Many hours passed, but there wasn't a single ripple in the sky, no Gargantas or portals that would signify the arrival of Aizen and his ilk.

The twenty-four combatants stared down the hypothetical place where they would appear, but there was something off here.

Las Noches... never showed up.

* * *

Naruto sheathed his sword, his reiatsu fading. Nelliel's skin had already faded to a pale pallor, and her eyes were wide open and blank. His attack had split her in two entirely, and she was dead before she even hit the ground. Naruto frowned; he was very satisfied with the kill he had just performed, and Nelliel has been a thorn in his side for far too long.

However, there was something else that bothered him. Naruto placed his finger on the ground and opened up his Pesquisa. He narrowed his eyes, focusing in on the two humans that were trying to escape. They were far away, and would escape at this rate. Not to mention, he couldn't pinpoint their exact location, and only managed to get a grip on a general area.

He lifted his finger and sighed. Now that he knew Kurosaki's Hollow side could be controlled by his allies, those two were almost non-factors. They were little to no threat to him if his Hollow side was something he himself couldn't control. Not to mention, they didn't know how to use Garganta, so they couldn't escape to the real world and give away valuable information. At best, they would only be capable of living a vagrant life in Hueco Mundo with all the other Hollows.

He looked over, Nnoitra had already finished off her two ass-kissing Fracción. He was looking towards him for instructions now, as he knew along with the other Espada that it was time to make preparations for war.

"The first thing we need to do is abandon this old palace. Whether or not the Shinigami have Garganta, we know that the invaders came to Hueco Mundo particularly close to here, via the Garganta of Urahara Kisuke. We don't know if Urahara will make amends with Soul Society soon, but it's something we need to be prepared for."

Nnoitra frowned at Naruto.

"We're not ready to take on the Gotei 13 just yet. Almost all of Soul Society's power lies within its Captains, and without the former three commanders, we're low on power. In addition to that, it's ten Espada versus thirteen Captains. We're outnumbered, and one or two of our members are not up to par with even the weakest Captain Soul Society has to offer. Before we declare war on Soul Society, we need to have every single Espada operating at Captain-class or above." Naruto said. He paused for a moment to breathe, and continued.

"We also need to complete Wonderweiss' ability, and get into contact with our reserves in Eastern Hueco Mundo. Even if we somehow defeated the Soul Society, the Spirit King in necessary to the plan, and the Royal Guard is stronger than the Gotei 13. Those reserves will be pivotal in our second battle if we are to take the Spirit King's head..."

"Where are we going? Back to the Reino Animal palace?" Nnoitra asked. Naruto shook his head.

"No, that kingdom is dead and buried. Nothing will come of reviving that failed experiment now; I've given up on being a king. The Reino Animal wasn't strong enough to destroy Soul Society, and I became too concerned with governing. No, Baraggan may still hold onto the idea that he's still a king, but I've moved on. I'm no longer a king; I am a military commander."

Nnoitra listened to Naruto, not really caring about the whole thing. If they had to move, then they had to move. There seemed to be no way around this.

"We leave as soon as possible. Ulquiorra's already closing up the portal to Karakura Town; that place is no longer important. The only thing I need to do now is inform the other Espada of the relocating procedures. The lower-level Arrancar will follow their superior's lead..."

Nnoitra didn't say anything, but Naruto had already turned his back to him, so he couldn't see his reaction.

"So, where _are_ we going, then?" Nnoitra asked, finally speaking again. Naruto halted, bringing a hand to his chin as if to ponder the question. He hadn't decided on an exact location. He would have to recover some items that he left back at the Reino Animal's palace, but that wouldn't be his base of command.

"I'll tell you later, but for right now I'm going to call a meeting of the Espada. Aizen was the supreme commander of this place, but that has all changed. There isn't a rank greater than the Espada now, and we're going to have to make some decisions that haven't been up to us before..." Naruto said.

* * *

The Espada meeting hall had a new look. Without Aizen calling the shots or the meetings, it was the first time where he was not already present right at the start of the meeting. So far, nine of the Espada had already taken their designated seats at the table. Most of them already knew what was going on, but there were aspects about Naruto's course of action that not even Ulquiorra knew.

"Well, we might as well get this over with!" came Naruto's voice, as he walked down the hallway alone. The nine lower ranking Espada turned to look at him. Naruto smirked, and walked right past the head of the table where Aizen used to seat. He ran a hand over it as he walked, feeling the smooth material. He then took the second seat on the right, sandwiched in between Grimmjow and Harribel.

"I guess I'll just say the most obvious news right now: Aizen Sousuke is dead..." he proclaimed. There was a resounded silence, and the only person who really showed a visible reaction was Zommari, who had already been given time to blow off steam when announced of Aizen's death.

The rest of the Espada had already been briefed about this, and had accepted the news.

"Secondly, and more importantly is what we are going to do now. With Aizen gone, that means that I'm taking control of our armies from this point on. Granted, I am the highest ranking Espada and most of you were already my subordinates before, and have known about the plan for a while now. Therefore, I shouldn't expect much resistance from you on this matter, okay?" Naruto said casually, putting a hand on his cheek. His eyes flickered over to Baraggan. Naruto narrowed his eyes; that guy was being shockingly submissive about this matter.

"_What is he up to?_" Naruto thought. Just because Naruto and Baraggan had similar downfalls and similar grudges against Aizen did not mean they weren't enemies. Baraggan probably saw no different in him leading than he did with Aizen.

The other Espada who weren't a part of his kingdom didn't seem to have any objections. However, he knew one of them would raise a ruckus with the next thing he said.

He turned to Yammy.

"Oh, yeah... Yammy. You're being demoted..." he said sweetly, a big, gaping grin on his face as the look on Yammy's face went from bored indifference to dumbfounded stupidity He blinked for a moment, and Naruto thought for a moment that he was just going to sit there in shock, and the inevitable explosion wasn't going to come.

"WHAT!?"

"_Oh, there it is..._"

"Did I fucking stutter? You're not the Cero Espada anymore..." Naruto said.

"SCREW YOU! WHO THE HELL PUT YOU IN CHARGE AROUND HERE ANYWAY! JUST BECAUSE YOU REPLACED AIZEN-SAMA DOESN'T MEAN THAT I ACCEPT YOU AS OUR LEADER!" he roared. Naruto closed his eyes, and he grinned, showing sharp teeth. He didn't seem to care before that. However, it wasn't him who spoke next.

"Yammy, do you understand why you were given the position of Cero Espada?" Ulquiorra asked. Naruto opened his eyes, and his grin got wider. There wasn't a single person in Las Noches that Yammy respected more than Ulquiorra. Naruto had formed a Cero underneath the table, but it looked like he didn't need to use it.

Yammy breathed out heavily, before turning to Ulquiorra.

"Aizen gave you the position of Cero Espada not because of your abilities, but because of your potential. You are the only Espada who can conserve reiryoku by sleeping and eating, and allowing your power to build up over time. In addition to that, your Resurrección increases your strength and reiatsu as you become angrier. Essentially, you have the potential to increase your strength and reiatsu without limit. However, there are certain drawbacks towards this power. One, building up your reiatsu via either sleep or anger to truly powerful levels takes an extraordinary amount of time before you battle, and as such it is never feasible for practical combat. You have never built up your strength and reiatsu to true Cero Espada levels. Two, your Resurrección only grants an increase in physical strength; you lack the dangerous combat abilities of the rest of us. Do you understand what I'm saying?" Ulquiorra explained.

Yammy looked lost, and Ulquiorra sighed.

"Basically Yammy, you have the _potential_ to become the strongest of us, but your power and methods are so horribly inefficient it almost doesn't matter. Such an inefficient Arrancar is unfit to hold the rank of Cero Espada, and by extension rule over the army. In fact, right now, in your unprepared state, there is no doubt in my mind that everyone else at this table could defeat you in combat..." He fixed Yammy with a cold stare, one that was sure to wither even the strongest warriors.

And in Yammy's case, it succeeded.

Being torn apart verbally by the Arrancar he respected the most seemed to cow him, and the other Espada knew at that moment that force was not necessary to make him accept his demotion.

"Well, that's settled then. There is no need to go further than that. Yammy will remain at his position as the Décima Espada, but he will remain the Décima Espada in the event that he releases. The position of Cero Espada is now null and void," Naruto piped up. The other Espada agreed with him on that.

"Now, onto more important matters. We're relocating..." Naruto said bluntly. Now that was a statement that surprised plenty of the Espada, who saw no foreseeable reason that they should move.

"Allow me to explain. With the three commanders of Las Noches either dead or missing, we are significantly down on power. We cannot hope to challenge the Soul Society at our current level of power. Soul Society's power lies almost entirely within its Captains, which means that we are lacking several key Captain-level fighters. We have ten years..." he paused, allowing this information to sink in.

"Ten years to get all of the Espada to Captain-level. Ten years to train to our fullest potential, and ten years to gather our Hollow forces and coordinate the plan. It's a short time, but I believe that we can manage this..."

He turned to look over at Ulquiorra.

"And finally, there's one last order of business we need to take care of..." he paused for a moment, before he reached into his pocket, pulling out a deep purple orb covered in a glass case.

The other Espada looked at the orb carefully, and for many of them it was the first time they had ever seen the Hougyoku face-to-face. Usually, it was kept on a pedestal underground within Aizen's throne room, and many of them weren't Hougyoku-created Arrancar.

"You seem to all know what this is right here. It's the Hougyoku..." he explained, picking up the ball and looking at it. "Because of Aizen's recklessness, the true danger of the Hougyoku came out, and he outright killed himself because of its misuse..."

"During my fight with Aizen, he explained the true power of the Hougyoku, and its ability to make any desire come true. But... we've seen the result if someone tries to do that with its power..." Naruto said, tossing the Hougyoku and catching it in mid-air.

"The Hougyoku will continued to be used for its original purpose, and I will be the one to hold onto it. Despite this, there are numerous advancements we can make if we use this practically, and this is because of what Aizen did..."

"What did Aizen do?" Harribel asked.

"It's simple. When Aizen used the Hougyoku to turn Hollows into Arrancar, he was limiting our potential. The reiatsu composition of a Hougyoku-created Arrancar is 96% Hollow and 4% Shinigami, and the power gained through Shinigamification was rather miniscule. Why should this be when there was such a powerful tool at his disposal? Granted, most of us here are naturally-created Arrancar, but it is still possible to improve our selves if we use the Hougyoku. I need time to synch with the Hougyoku, but when I do I can awaken our full potential as Arrancar..."

"And what is this full potential, Naruto?" Harribel asked. She seemed to take up the position as unofficial spokesperson among the other Espada.

Naruto closed his eyes, before he looked over to Szayel. The Novena Espada nodded stoutly, before Naruto turned his gaze to look at Ulquiorra. His right-hand man was always of an interest to Naruto, for one particular reason.

"It's simple, really. Right now, all of us except for one are unable to use a second release." Naruto started. Most of the other Espada looked at each other; clearly they had never heard of a "second release".

"And this is because most of us at this point are unable to use it. With the Hougyoku, we'll be able to pass our former limits and finally be able to learn the Resurrección: Segunda Etapa."

"Wait, wait, wait! You're telling me that there is a whole 'nother stage of Resurrección we can use!" Grimmjow blurted out, not being able to contain his emotions any more.

"That's right; Ulquiorra is the only one who's been capable of achieving this state, but his existence right here proves that it's possible. The Resurrección: Segunda Etapa is essential to the invasion. With it, most of us will be able to breeze right past the average Captain-level strength..."

That seemed to get the attention of all the remaining Espada.

"But still, I have to sync with the Hougyoku. It's going to be some time before I'm capable of creating that second release. In the meantime, we need to abandon this palace; there is nothing of use here to us anymore..."

That seemed to surprise a great deal of them.

"I'll explain. Due to our recent invaders that have been purged, we know that it is possible for Shinigami to come into Hueco Mundo. With that said, they would know that we're here. We need to relocate somewhere quickly before they decide to launch a full-scale invasion..."

No one seemed to raise any objections, so Naruto stood up.

"So it's settled then. We will relocate our forces to our reserve base in Eastern Hueco Mundo; you all have exactly one week to get everything you need for the journey. I will be taking that week to supervise the journey and movement of materials, and Szayel's going to need extra help with his lab equipment and specimens..."

"No need, Naruto. I already have all of my Fracción working on that..." Szayel piped up, waving a hand haphazardly. Naruto hummed.

"Alright... then everyone focus on your preparations for the move. There is one other important thing that lies within Las Noches. The archives on the Shinigami that Aizen brought to Hueco Mundo. The information we have on the current Captains are the most important files, but make sure that every last word of information in the archives travels with us to our new base. That's all for now. Dismissed!" he shouted, bringing an end to the Espada meeting for now. As the other Espada filed out of the room, Naruto folded his hands, now alone in the room. El Libro de Ciclos was very specific on its plan, but he didn't know if something like that was really there.

* * *

It seemed as if they had been running for hours, and yet no one seemed to be coming after them. Nelliel's sacrifice had given both Ichigo and Orihime enough time to put a great deal of distance between themselves and the other two Espada, but Ichigo didn't believe that they'd be able to avoid all confrontation with other enemies.

The landscape was desolate the entire time, though, and for that they were at least thankful. They didn't stop to heal Ichigo's injuries at any point in time; he had a sneaking suspicion doing that would only invite trouble.

Orihime was keeping pace with Ichigo, but she couldn't stop herself from looking behind her shoulder every so often. Besides doing that, she would occasionally break down crying in the middle of running, when the memories of all the deaths would confront her.

Ichigo almost envied her. He too wanted nothing more than to break down like that, but he knew he couldn't, for both of their sakes. There would be time to mourn later, if they could even get out of the palace.

That was another thing that was bothering him. Where would he and Orihime go from here? Urahara hadn't given them any instructions on how to get back, and they didn't know how to use Garganta. No one in Soul Society was there to aid them, so they were essentially stuck in Hueco Mundo.

Ichigo sighed; it was better than nothing. They, or rather he, had saved Inoue after all; they could worry about what they were going to do later.

He heard crying from beside him; Orihime was breaking down again, and as a result she didn't really look where she was going. The sand parted underneath her feet, and before anyone knew it, she had fallen down a pitfall trap.

She screamed clumsily, and Ichigo stopped in his tracks, a bead of sweat rolling down his face. His eye twitched suddenly, and he found himself at a loss for words.

There was a thud, and a high-pitched "Owie" from the bottom of the pit. Ichigo sighed in relief and a little bit of exasperation, before he peered down the hole.

"Inoue!" he called.

"Kurosaki-kun?!" she called back.

"Inoue, are you alright?!"

"Yeah, I'm fine. I landed on my stomach, but something broke my fall!" she called back. Ichigo's mouth opening slightly in surprise, before his eye twitched again.

"_Must've been her... never mind_."

"Anyway, Kurosaki-kun. Come down here; I think I found a better way out!" her voice said from down below. Ichigo raised an eyebrow at that; what kind of pitfall trap was it if it had a way out?

"Inoue... just stay there. I'll come down and get you real quick!" he shouted down to her, jumping into the hole without any hesitation. The hole was dark, but it was significantly wide, as Ichigo could move around while he was falling quite easily.

Ichigo touched down easily, his Shinigami body and the soft sand both cushioning his fall. Orihime was lying to the right of him on her stomach, looking down in another direction.

"Kurosaki-kun, look..." she pointed in the same direction she was looking. The two humans seemed to be have been deposited into an area that have caved in over time, but the other section of the underground tunnel still seemed to be intact, given the stone walls and unlit torches that lined the wall.

Ichigo was reminded of the tunnel they had used when they first entered Las Noches.

"I'll bet if we follow this tunnel, we can make it directly outside without running into any enemies. Man, I'm glad you found this, Inoue..." he said, smiling lightly at her. Orihime stuck out her tongue bashfully.

"I'm really clumsy, so I guess that's the only reason we found this place..." she said modestly. Ichigo had already gotten to his feet, and crouched slightly to fit into the tunnel. Orihime dragged herself to her feet, and followed directly behind him. She noticed his gait; he was limping slightly, and his breathing was slightly heavier.

He was definitely still seriously injured.

"Kurosaki-kun, wait! Let me heal you while we're down here!" Orihime called out. Ichigo stopped in place, glancing at her before once again turning back ahead.

"We're almost out of here, just wait a little while longer. I can feel it; I've been getting so sick of this place!" he roared, pushing himself to go on. Orihime stared at him in awe, until a few minutes later they could see an opening at the end of the tunnel.

Ichigo picked up speed after, and when they finally breached the opening and came out underneath the Hueco Mundo moon he collapsed onto the sandy ground almost immediately.

"Kurosaki-kun!" Orihime shouted, thinking that he was injured. Ichigo simply hummed at her, thoroughly content to just lay there in the sand. He didn't even flinch when he felt an orange triangle surround his body, and a warm feeling spread throughout his inside.

"So... what do we do now?" Ichigo asked the question that was on both of their minds. Orihime continued to heal him, despite the fact that a thoughtful look had entered her face.

She had finished healing him, and the orange triangle faded. Ichigo flexed his hand by instinct, and his Shinigami robes had recovered fully. He got up from his lying position and sat on the sandy floor.

"Well, we're stuck here for the time being..." he trailed off. Orihime seemed to grasp the implications of what this meant, but there was one other thing that her mind was focusing on.

"_Stuck here... with Kurosaki-kun?_" she thought, as she unconsciously turned a beet red. Ichigo noticed this.

"What's wrong?" he asked. That brought her out of her reverie, and she shook her head violently.

"N-Nothing, just nothing! Everything's great!"

Ichigo continued to look confused, and Orihime dropped her head.

"We don't know how to use Garganta, but..." he trailed off, looking up into the sky at the Hueco Mundo moon that hung over the two of them. It gave him a strange feeling.

"I've saved you, even if it was at the cost of all my friends. The war is still going to go on, but I've been beginning to feel that it doesn't matter now. We've lost everyone, so I almost don't even see the point of returning now. You feel the same way, don't you Inoue?" he asked, in a rare moment of seriousness. A wave of depression washed over him, and tears pricked at the corner of Orihime's eyes.

Slowly, she nodded.

"I sort of feel that we can't go back now, that doing so would be an insult to their memory. But, whatever the case, we're stuck here now. We have to make the best of our new lives here, and see if we can cope with the death of our friends," he finished. Once again, Orihime nodded in silent agreement.

The two of them were lost souls now. They didn't have anywhere to go, or anywhere to go back _to_. They had no goals, no purpose, and no future, and in a way they only brought this fate on themselves.

It was going to be a long life, but that was all they really had...

* * *

Okay, the Chapter's done. That ends the double feature of chapters, so I hoped you enjoyed them both.

**Current Espada**

1st: Naruto Uzumaki

2nd: Coyote Starrk

3rd: Baraggan Louisenbairn

4th: Tia Harribel

5th: Ulquiorra Cifer

6th: Nnoitra Gilga

7th: Grimmjow Jeagerjaquez

8th: Zommari Rureaux

9th: Szayel Aporro Granz

10th: Yammy Llargo

Goodbye,

**_Alban55_**


	48. El Tercer Imperio

**Impstar**: I exaggerated for the purpose of the story, but I honestly believe the power boost isn't that much. As to your argument, an Adjuchas-class Hollow isn't lowly at all; they're about Vice-Captain level. Considering we've only really seen Adjuchas fight in filler like Harribel's crap backstory and the Menos Forest, this still holds water canonically. Strong ones like Grimmjow may potentially be between Vice-Captain and Captain. And yes, I do believe that Grimmjow's Fracción would be able to defeat a standard lieutenant as Hollows. At least Edrad, Shawlong, and Yylfordt. Unrelated, but Nnoitra most likely isn't a Hougyoku-created Arrancar.

Another reminder for those who didn't get the memo. I have toned down Chapters 31 and 32 to make them less of gratuitous violence. Details on the author's note of Chapter 46.

A few people thought that Orihime was going to find the Konoha villagers when she fell down the pit. Uhh... the Reino Animal is thousands of miles away from Las Noches, you know.

Also, I have another announcement to make. I've changed the layout of things. Originally, the arc setup was like this:

Introductionary arc: Chapters 1-2

Menos Forest arc: Chapters 3-4

First Las Noches arc: Chapters 5-12

Valicav arc: Chapters 13-18

Dreendo arc: Chapters 19-26

Reino Animal/Konoha Invasion arc: Chapters 27-34

Second Las Noches arc: Chapters 35-43

Las Noches rebellion/Pre-War arc: Chapters 44-49

Second-to-last arc: Chapters 50-61

Last arc: Chapters 62-82

Now, the last two arcs are going to be Chapters 50-56 and Chapters 57-67, meaning that my intending chapter number for finishing this story with has dropped from 82 to 67. But, that doesn't mean that this story will be shorter, no. I'm combining more events into one chapter, meaning that starting at Chapter 51, most chapters are going to be longer, probably upwards of 10,000 words.

* * *

Chapter 48: El Tercer Imperio

Las Noches was completely abandoned.

Ten years ago, the fortress would have been thriving with abundant Hollow and Arrancar activity, but there had been a change in power from around that time. Aizen Sousuke had been killed and replaced as leader, and with that the purpose of Las Noches had disappeared. The Arrancar that had been left over had relocated into Eastern Hueco Mundo, and the palace was left empty in their wake.

A lone man walked through the ruins of Hueco Mund, looking for something.

He was dressed in a white trench coat and hat, and was carrying what seemed to be some kind of standard for an organization. It was his group that had been responsible for reducing the palace of Las Noches to ruins, and they still couldn't find any information until today.

"Taichou! We've found out where they are!" he called out. Ever since the rebellion, the Arrancar had disappeared from this part of Hueco Mundo, long before the Vandenreich had set up their base within Hueco Mundo. Without Arrancars that they could subjugate and bend to their will, their plans had been delayed by several years.

They hadn't been able to declare war on Soul Society.

The member of the Jagdarmee turned around, the standard he was flying pivoting with him. He was looking at a man who was sitting in an ornate chair in the middle of the landscape, his legs crossed and his hand resting on his cheek. He looked calmly pleased with the news.

Kirge Opie didn't say anything to his subordinate; they weren't stupid, they could finish the report on their own. Kirge's subordinate looked at the surrounding area one last time.

"We believe they relocated ten years ago after the fall of Aizen into Eastern Hueco Mundo, several thousand miles away from Las Noches. They are apparently planning something, but I'm not sure what. Regardless, we can track their whereabouts from here on," he reported. Kirge smiled a little wider, and got to his feet.

"I see..."

"What will we do now, sir?" asked the Jagdarmee member.

Kirge walked up to him.

"I'll tell you what we're going to do. We're going to make the trip to their new headquarters, and establish contact with these Arrancar. We are the recruiting officers of the Vandenreich, and we will see if we can subjugate them... bend them to our will if you please," Kirge said, turning his back on his subordinate. Juhabach-sama would need to be informed about these recent events.

"But sir, this Vulpes C that is leading this group is said to be very uncontrollable, and powerful. Are you sure we can subjugate these Arrancar with a leader like that?" he asked.

"Don't you worry... we are the Jagdarmee of the Vandenreich. There is no Arrancar we can't subjugate..."

West of Las Noches, in the opposite direction of the Reino Animal and Naruto's new locale, there lied a strange fortress that had been erected into the Hueco Mundo desert, after the Vandenreich had gained access to Hueco Mundo.

In terms of architecture, it seemed to be very similar to Las Noches, though it wasn't on the scale of such a palace. It was a much simpler abode, but within it lied an army that was truly to be feared, with a leader that wasn't the most pleasant man to be following.

Like Las Noches, there was a throne room that held this particular leader of the palace. He was a large man, with long black hair and muttonchops that could give even the most rugged man a run for his money.

He was... Juhabach.

His right hand man Haschwald stood at the foot of his throne. His lord was particularly aloof towards his Quincy warriors, even if he was absolutely ruthless to an Arrancar. The invasion of Hueco Mundo hadn't really gone as planned thus far; they hadn't located many Arrancar though, so there were only a few dozen within their army.

"Juhabach-sama, it appears that we have located the base of Vulpes C, as Soul Society calls him," Haschwald said, as his leader calmly reacted to the news.

"I see. Arrancars have been precious valuables around here, but now we have stumbled upon a vast gold mine of them. What of Kirge?" he asked.

"Aye, he's on his way back now. He apparently wants to take a few of the Stern Ritter with him to confront the Arrancar. After that, he's going to travel to their base and establish contact with them. Their leader will be the most troublesome to deal with..." Haschwald said.

"Yes, he will be. However, conquering Hueco Mundo is not the only project we have on our mind now. We need to deal with the Soul Society as well, and I believe I know a way that we may soften up these Arrancar should they be hard to subjugate," Juhabach said.

"You mean?"

"Yes, the Konoha association may be able to play a firm role in this, and we may consolidate this by using the only Shinigami we have within the Stern Ritter. Follow me..." he said, rising from his throne. Haschwald bowed to his lord, following him out of the throne room and into the hallway.

They walked for just a few seconds, coming to a plain door at the end of the hall with the letter "L" plastered on it. Haschwald looked at it bizarrely for a second.

"Stern Ritter L, The Love. The only member of the entire Vandenreich that is a Shinigami, but not just any Shinigami. The current Captain of the Kidou Corps in Soul Society, and a double agent for us..." he whispered, as Juhabach knocked on the door gently.

"Come in..." came a suave female voice. It was at that moment that Haschwald realized that he had never even been in Stern Ritter L's room or even seen her; she usually kept to herself when she was in the Vandenreich fortress.

Juhabach smirked, before he opened the door lightly. The room was pitch black, but Haschwald could tell what was inside the room from a few outlines, and it was fairly disturbing.

The moldy old wallpaper was peeling, but that wasn't the striking thing about the walls. Rather, all throughout it, the words "DO YOU LOVE ME" were scratched into the wood with what appeared to be a crude blade. The room itself was a mess, with bloody sheets and tattered furniture all over the floor, and a particularly large vanity in the back end of the room.

There were two stands opposite each other just inside the room, holding clothes. One seemed to hold the Stern Ritter's Vandenreich uniform, and the other seemed to hold her Kido Corps robes.

There was a bed over to the far right, with a human figure shadowed in it. Haschwald couldn't really see her, but he assumed that she was the Stern Ritter they were looking for. It was strange looking at her; she seemed to be going back and forth through this bizarre motion with her arm, making this breathy moaning noise while she was at it.

She also seemed to be completely naked.

Haschwald grimaced as he realized what was going on, and hastily averted his eyes even though he couldn't actually see her inside the room. Juhabach was unphased by the whole spectacle, though he did not walk inside.

"Oh, Juhabach. What brings you to my room?" she asked, a tinge of lust inside her tone. Juhabach smiled.

"You probably could figure it out by now. We've found the location of Vulpes C and his army; we're going to establish contact. But, you, as the Captain of the Kido Corps have a suitable tie with the Konoha Association, who have been known to desire an invasion of Hueco Mundo and a declaration of war against that Hollow..."

"You have the means to ensure their transportation to Hueco Mundo; make sure they get here..." he trailed off, as the nude woman finished her business and stood on her feet. She didn't step into the light, though.

"...Sakura."

* * *

Ten years ago, Naruto and his Espada vacated Las Noches for a much simpler area in Eastern Hueco Mundo. Unbeknownst to him, Las Noches had been destroyed as a building a few months prior, but no Shinigami attack force ever invaded Hueco Mundo.

Naruto had stopped by his old kingdom once, to pick up El Libro de Ciclos, which he had left there in his long absence. But, despite leading once again, there was no lavish palace or system of government in place now.

The new locale for Naruto's fighting force was a few hundred miles west of the Hueco Mundo coast, where the desert began to turn into grasslands. Instead of a palace or fortress, there were about fifty large tents, ten shacks, and a massive longhall in the center which housed all of the Arrancar force. The Hollow force resided in about a hundred-mile radius around the longhall, and most of them were congregated in a massive canyon that the settlement overlooked, or underground.

Each of the shacks belonged to a particular Espada, but inside the longhall was a massive table based off of the one found within Las Noches, with a giant chair behind it that could serve as a throne. The desert around the area served as the training grounds for all personnel.

Outside the settlement's ground, Kirge Opie and two Jagdarmee overlooked the area. They couldn't see any Arrancar out on the surface, but they knew the second they found this place that it was where they were. The reiatsu here was fierce, but they were ready. They spotted the massive longhall in the center, that was where they needed to go, and Vulpes C already knew they were coming. This was supposed to be a diplomatic meeting between two rival groups, but that would most likely go downhill very fast.

As the Jagdarmee walked throughout the village, a few Arrancar walked around the makeshift village. Some of them chuckled at the Quincies, and other glared. But, what was truly odd about them was that not a single one attacked Kirge. Instead, they give him his space, which seemed to be an indicator that Vulpes C knew he was here.

And he was giving him the warmest welcome he knew of.

Kirge opened the door to the longhall; there was nobody there except for the single figure sitting on the chair on the far end of the room. Kirge was surprised; this wasn't like the reports of Vulpes C. What sat in front of him appeared to be little more than a blonde kid who looked about sixteen or seventeen, even if he was an Arrancar.

Naruto's appearance remained relatively unchanged throughout the ten years. His age hadn't changed at all, and he kept the Arrancar uniform that had been popularized by Aizen Sousuke. Even his mask fragments remained the same, and the average person wouldn't be able to tell that this Arrancar had mastered the Resurrección: Segunda Etapa not too long ago. Because of this, Naruto exuded an aura of power that he hadn't before, even at the height of his service underneath Aizen Sousuke.

Kirge had gotten a glimpse of another Espada while filing into the village; he could tell by his reiatsu. It was a long skinny looking Arrancar with a strange scythe-like Zanpakutou. His appearance too had not changed at all from years before, but this Espada oozed power, and on the inside, there were differences. If these Espada released their Zanpakutous, there would be differences of power from ten years ago.

These ten Arrancar were dangerous, dangerous killing machines, and were worlds beyond that of their old selves. Kirge didn't know what they were capable of, or even what their names were, but in hindsight this might've been a bad idea. He wasn't feeling too confident after feeling their reiatsu, and he didn't know if the Vandenreich would be able to subjugate them, or even match them in combat.

"So, you're part of that group that's been sneaking around Hueco Mundo these past few years? Going by the looks of you and the feel of your reiatsu, you're all Quincies..." he stated. Already, Naruto was entertaining about killing them, and it was unlikely that this people would leave alive.

"Yes, sir, Vulpes C, sir. My name is Kirge Opie, and I am the first Jagdarmee of the Vandenreich. It is my great hope that our two organizations can get along well in the future..." Kirge started, fake politeness tinging his voice.

"_Someone's going to be sent to kill me... these Quincies just want to conquer Hueco Mundo..._" Naruto thought.

"And, what does your group want from us?"

"Well, it is our hope that we form an alliance with you. For a limited time only, my leader allowing Arrancar to become our comrades, so please don't miss this precious chance!"

Kirge was smiling deviously in his mind; this wasn't likely to work out in their favor, so they would have to use alternative methods to get them to their side. The Arrancar leader didn't seem to be the wiser about this.

Naruto grinned deviously at Kirge and the other two Vandenreich members, before he stood up from his chair. He pointed at them seriously, before he panned his eyes to behind him for a second, before Kirge could notice.

"No, I will not ally myself with you fucking humans, and I definitely won't be subservient to whoever the hell your leader is! If you wanna talk business, tell your leader to come himself, and also tell him to not bring any ass-kissing lackeys next time!"

Maybe he should just kill them now?

Kirge never lost that calm smile on his face, but he raised his hand in what was supposed to be a placating gesture. Naruto grinned; he did bring people like them after all. He locked eyes with Kirge, never breaking eye contact as two figures burst through the wooden walls of the longhall and rushed towards him.

Kirge grinned, before laughing. He had brought two Stern Ritter along with him for purely this reason, to get the jump on Naruto should he refuse their offer.

Stern Ritter U: NaNaNa Najahkoop and Stern Ritter O: Driscoll Berci were the ones that he had brought along with him. They had been lying in wait outside the longhall, listening in on the conversation, prepared to intervene if need be.

They were in mid-air, directly behind Naruto. The Arrancar was still turned towards Kirge, and seemingly hadn't noticed their presence yet. Of course, in reality he noticed their presence a few minutes ago.

They came at him with a speed that was relatively easy to manage.

Naruto was prepared for them. He used Sonido, and dashed away from the spot where they were aiming to attack, flashing into a spot a few feet away from where they struck the ground.

He released his reiatsu, and drew his Zanpakutou, flicking it horizontally in a light swing. It caught NaNaNa in a quick flash, bisecting him down the middle while he was in the process of recoiling from his own attack.

"You-" Driscoll started in anger, surprised at how quick Naruto was. Naruto grinned psychotically, appearing behind Driscoll before he could even react. Naruto sheathed his Zanpakutou, and then thrust his hand into Driscoll's abdomen, quick as a flash. Driscoll couldn't even get out his Quincy weapon to retaliate.

"You know, I haven't killed a Quincy in a _loooonngg_ time..." he started, putting a hand to his chin in mock thought. He twisted his hand in Driscoll's abdomen, allowing the larger man to gasp in pain.

"Your arrival here makes me want to just go to the human world and slaughter anyone who has even the slightest amount of unique abilities. The fact that you people are alive means that Soul Society missed some two hundred years ago, unfortunately," Naruto said. He pulled his hand out of the Quincy, and when he doubled over in pain Naruto kicked him up at a frightening rate, jamming him in the roof of the longhall.

He flicked his Zanpakutou one last time, and the two Vandenreich that were supporting Kirge were sliced in half by the simple wind of his blow. Kirge was standing there, rooted in place. He didn't dare get out his own weapon.

"Leave. If you want to talk negotiations, bring your actual boss here next time. Though, I won't guarantee that I won't use my army and just obliterate your forces right now. You Quincies don't belong in Hueco Mundo anyway..."

Kirge turned to leave, but he heard a raucous laughter come from behind him as soon as he turned his back on Naruto.

"Oh, wait! I've changed my mind!" Naruto said happily, bringing out his Zanpakutou yet again. Despite promising to let Kirge go, Naruto bisected the Jagdarmee leader before he could even react, with a giddy little chuckle.

"Woo, that felt good! Not being a subordinate to _Aizen_ has really done wonders for my emotional state!" he said, lazily flopping down on his throne. He would have to call a meeting with the Espada to discuss this new matter, but in approximately a week there were more important matters to attend to.

All of their reserve army had been rounded up and underneath one leadership, and Starrk had mastered his Segunda Etapa about a month before, the last one to do so.

They were ready.

* * *

Kurosaki Ichigo was beginning to forget things.

Nothing important, of course. He knew that he was once a Substitute Shinigami for Soul Society, he knew he had friends that were killed ten years ago in Las Noches. He remembered his family and friends that he left behind in the human world; he thought about them every day of his life.

However, he was having a hard time remembering faces. His home of Karakura Town got fuzzier and fuzzier in his memory as the days went by, and there were only a few very important faces he could recall from off the top of his head.

This honestly worried him; if he spent so much time in Hueco Mundo, would his old memories leave him completely? He had discussed this with Orihime many times, but she couldn't give him a straight answer either.

Whatever the case, they had given up on ever returning to the human world after Ichigo had tried and failed to open up a Garganta. The vagrant life within Hueco Mundo had turned the two humans wild, though.

Ichigo was still in his Shinigami form, so he had aged less than Orihime had by quite a bit. Granted, he was still a human, and therefore even he didn't have the full slowed aging of a true Shinigami, and altogether he looked like he was around eighteen. He looked a little bulkier than when he was a teenager, and his orange hair had gotten even wilder. On his face there was a little bit of stubble, and his robes had become tattered from years of wearing them.

Orihime, on the other hand had been affected by standard human aging. Gone was the young high school girl of around sixteen, and in her place was a mature, voluptuous twenty-six year old woman. Yet, Hueco Mundo had affected even her. Her straight, glossy hair had become wild and almost tattered, and the same robe she had worn all this time was becoming as tattered as Ichigo's. All in all, she looked like an Amazonian woman, minus the height.

They had wandered into the east after they had escaped from Las Noches. For the first few months, they were forced to eat small Hollows that came out of the desert landscape, but once the desert turned into grassland, they were able to find edible plants all throughout the area.

They continued wandering after that, never really in a hurry to be anywhere. Overall, they were at least able to find some appreciation for the natural beauty of Hueco Mundo, but they longed for their home anyway.

Despite seeing many different locales within Hueco Mundo, even they were surprised when they reached the coastline. And the shocks would continue when the spotted an enormous palace inland by only a few miles.

The palace had set off both Ichigo and Orihime's nerves; it reminded them too much of Las Noches. Despite that, there was something about it that was off, but Ichigo couldn't quite place what it was.

The main gates to the palace were wide open, and looked like they hadn't been moved in years. In fact, the entire palace was like that, now that Ichigo looked at it a bit closer. The paint was beginning to fade, and the walls themselves were becoming eroded.

Ichigo tentatively stepped inside the main gates of the palace, Orihime close behind him. It wasn't long before they came across the foyer of the palace, where the Hueco Mundo sky overlooked all of the area.

There wasn't a Hollow or Arrancar in sight; this place had been abandoned for years it seemed like. There were a few buildings that rose up out of the landscape, but overall the inside of the palace just seemed to be a flat plain.

There were two particular buildings that caught their eye, however, as these were the biggest and most obvious landmarks in the area. One was a plain grey building of Bauhaus architecture, though with its broken windows it obviously wasn't serving any purpose.

The other landmark was even larger than the building, and it resembled a stadium of sorts. Out of all the landmarks here , this one seemed by far the most intact of the bunch, though it also had a sort of lonely feel to it. Ichigo turned to Orihime, and Orihime turned to Ichigo. They were wandering spirits after all; they would go wherever their hearts told them to. Something about that stadium told them that there might be useful resources available to them there.

It took them about half an hour to get there, and the wrought iron gates that served as the entrance were rusted clean off, allowing the two humans to easily breach the security of the arena. Ichigo stepped out onto the field, taking a look into the spectator's stands. Several of the seats were being overgrown with vines.

As he stepped onto the floor, his foot made a strange noise as it walked. Curious, he bent over, looking at the dirt that covered the arena floor. After a little bit of digging, he struck metal.

"Hey, Inoue! Come look at this!" he called out, as the woman walked out onto the stage. She walked up to her companion, looking down at the metal contraption. There was a line going between the metal, separating it into two halves, and it looked like it could be opened.

"Well, what do you think?" Ichigo asked. Orihime didn't say anything, and Ichigo took her lack of an answer that this was something worth investigating. He took another look at the stands, noticing what seemed to be an announcer's box high in the balcony.

"Kurosaki-kun?" Orihime asked as Ichigo began to ascend the steps to the box.

He approached the door and jiggled the knob a little bit. The locks had also apparently rusted over time, and he was able to gain access with no real trouble.

The inside of the room was dark, obviously, but there was a peculiar mechanism on the opposite side of the side, and besides the announcer's table it seemed to be the only important feature within the room.

Ichigo touched the lever of the machine; it was broken. Still, it looked like it could still be moved with a little bit of elbow grease, so the substitute Shinigami pulled on it tightly, feeling the tumblers underneath slowly but surely begin to move.

With a little shove, he pulled the lever down completely. There was a low rumbling that resounded throughout the area, which made Ichigo shake in place a little bit. Orihime stumbled, rapidly getting out of the way and into the stands as the floor began to move.

The metal doors that were on the stadium floor were opening, displacing the dirt as they retreated into the arena. Ichigo and Orihime watched with bated breath; they didn't know what this was, but both of them had a bad feeling about what they would find.

It took a few minutes for it to open completely, and the mechanism got jammed a few times. When the floor had receded entirely, Orihime looked over the edge. She adjusted her eyes for a moment, before they widened.

Ichigo was up in the box when he heard Orihime's scream. He turned around faster than he realized, throwing himself out of the announcer's box and rushing to Orihime's aid.

Thankfully for him, Orihime wasn't harmed in the slightest, and there wasn't a Hollow attack in the slightest. Despite that, something seemed to have stunned her, as she was pointing a shaky finger down in the hole, her eyes fixated on something that was apparently down there.

Three seconds later, and Ichigo was right beside her.

"Inoue, what's wro-" he was cut off as he looked down into the pit, and he grimaced in disgust and alarm.

Down there were a multitude of corpses, but Ichigo could tell they were not of Hollow origin. They had no masks or holes that would identify them as such, and Ichigo didn't know how to describe them.

The blood had dried along the walls, so he knew that they had been dead for quite some time now, but there were other questions that popped into his head. What were they doing here and how did they die among them.

There was one faint reiatsu he could detect down in the pit, and he tentatively looked over the edge. Huddled in the corner seemed to be a girl of around sixteen years of age. Her face was buried in her hands, but going from her dirty garb, Ichigo could tell that she had been here for a while.

Ichigo winced at the gaunt face that looked up towards the light as her cavern opened. How long had she truly been down here? And why was she the only humanoid figure in a room where everyone else had been turned into something not of this world?

Her stare was pure insanity though; the way that she looked at the two of them sent shivers down his spine. And slowly, she was beginning to get to her feet.

She attempted to talk, but no words came out. She hadn't used her voice box for the better part of a century; she didn't even know if she could speak her own language anymore.

She attempted to talk, the words coming out as garbled screech, before she finally got a grasp on the words she was looking for.

"Who... are you?"

* * *

Okay, hopefully I've avoided some continuity errors here. This scene is tied with Chapters 31 and 32, and like them I changed it to make it less graphic. Again, I'm trying to avoid gratuitous violence with this matter, but I need the psychological aspects of it, and the nature of the crime that Naruto did still needs to resonate without all the details of what happened and the violence. I suppose I should say that the act of what he did is important, but all that pointless detail adds nothing. Hopefully I've done that here, as his deed comes to light.

Goodbye,

_**Alban55**_


	49. Caballero Estrella

**Futon Lord**: Uh, I think so. I think I mentioned a difference in the technology wouldn't allow Konohaji to age. I'll look back, and if I didn't, I'll fix the continuity error.

You know, I can't seem to figure out what team I hate more. The Heat or the Celtics. Though I also hate how overrated the fucking Clippers are, especially Blake Griffin.

* * *

Chapter 49: Caballero Estrella

"W-What is this?" Ichigo managed to get out, looking down upon the grisly display of events. Despite that, the fate of those things weren't what was bothering him, as they looked like they had been dead for years. No, it was the young girl who looked around his "age" who was still alive down there. How long had she been here?

"Hey!" he said impulsively, jumping down into the pit. Orihime tried to stop him, but he had already gone down there, picking up the near unconscious, gibbering girl in his hands, using his Shinigami powers to hop back up onto the ledge.

He laid the blonde girl down the ground; she was dirty and ragged. Her eyes were wide-open and staring into space, reflecting the lunacy that was held within them. Her mouth was open, but most of the time no sound came out, and when it did, it was pure gibberish. When she managed to annunciate full sentences, they were very garbled and difficult to understand.

"Are you okay?" Ichigo asked frantically.

Ichigo winced a little as she grasped his wrist _very _forcefully, tilting her head slowly to look at him. Her eyes suddenly became even more bloodshot, and an abject hiss sounded as she opened her mouth.

"**_Kill... me..._** **NOW!"** she hissed, before she screamed the last part out. Out of impulse, Ichigo tore himself free of the girl's grasp, stepping away and staring at her incredulously.

The way she had said that disturbed both Ichigo and Orihime. It wasn't a kind of pleading tone, one where they were absolutely desperate to die. No, instead it was an angry, demanding kind of tone, one that promised great pain should her request be denied.

"Kill me now!" she shouted again, not getting up. Ichigo took an uneasy step forward, once again going up to the fallen girl. He stared at her tentatively, watching as she occasionally twitched.

"What happened here? Why are you here? Who are you?" he opted to ask instead of complete the girl's request. Surprisingly, the girl didn't fly into a rage at that.

"Pit... K-Konoha... Hollow... killed them... mercy..." she babbled onwards, her words making no sense to the pair of other humans who had stumbled across her.

"What's she saying, Kurosaki-kun?" Orihime asked, trying to decipher the jumbled words.

"I think she's trying to tell us something about this pit, and what happened down there..." Ichigo commented, watching the girl go through yet another spasm.

Ichigo dropped his sword into the ground as her spasms got more violent, pulling her head onto his lap to support her.

"He did this... did this to all of us. Had to kill them..." she mumbled. Her sentences seemed to be getting less jumbled.

"Did this to who?" Orihime asked soothingly, trying not to set the girl on edge.

"Name... Naruto. Turned comrades... into things. Had to... kill them... couldn't let them suffer... any more..." she said. Her eyes were fairly blank, and all she did now was stare into space, and from the way her voice sounded, she was talking to neither Ichigo or Orihime.

Ichigo latched onto one word in that sentence.

"Naruto? Who's that?"

The name sounded familiar, and Ichigo felt that this "Naruto" person was someone he should know.

"King... of place. Attacked... Konoha..." she replied, before she stopped staring out into space. Suddenly, like she wasn't even motionless anymore, her arm shot out, grabbing Ichigo's sword and holding it to her own neck.

"Must die... been unable to... had to find a way to save them... but it was hopeless..." she babbled. A few tears fell down from her eyelids, but whether it was joy over a long sought after release, or sorrow over past events, no one could tell.

This action seemed to catch both Ichigo and Orihime off-guard, with the former wondering how he had been so careless to allow a sharp weapon within this clearly suicidal girl's grasp.

"Wait, don't be so hasty! You don't have to do this!" Ichigo shouted at her, while making sure to not make any sudden movements that would startle the girl enough for her to thrust forward.

"The pain's too much!" she said, in her first full sentence of the entire conversation. She seemed to be becoming more and more aware of her surroundings as time went on.

Before Ichigo or Orihime could manage to get out another word, the girl plunged Ichigo's sword into her jugular vein, effectively ending her life as red liquid poured from the vital spot at an impossible to halt rate.

Ichigo wrenched the sword from her grasp just a split-second too late, just as the girl penetrated her own flesh deep enough and fell to the ground, coughing heavily, but with a last minute smile on her face.

The two travelers were shocked by how quickly that occurred. Within minutes of freeing the girl from the deep chamber, she babbles some words that they really couldn't make sense of, and then takes her own life. It was so surreal that neither of them knew what to make of it.

Things like this just didn't happen, not even in Hueco Mundo.

At least, not without a cause.

There was something about this that stuck on Ichigo's mind, however. The girl that had just committed suicide seemed to point to the fact that there was a certain culprit who organized whatever had happened.

The girl also seemed to mention that she had killed a bunch of her own villagers, which meant that there were more people who were subjected to a seemingly similar fate.

This seemed to be a Hollow kingdom, similar to ones that Ichigo and Orihime had encountered during their travels, but it was on a much larger scale, not to mention it seemed abandoned.

This Naruto person seemed to be important in the scale of things though. Perhaps he was their leader? Whatever the case, he seemed to be the one who was responsible for this spectacle, but there was too much information they hadn't gleaned, and therefore they didn't know the full circumstances of the incident that the girl was talking about.

Regardless, they knew that some horrible crime had taken place here.

* * *

"Juhabach-sama!"

A lone, injured member of the Jagmardee stumbled through the Vandenreich palace in Hueco Mundo, having just got back from her recruiting mission on the other side of the world. After witnessing the events that took place there, he had to rush back as soon as possible.

This was bad. This was very, very bad.

He barged into the throne room, screw the consequences. Juhabach was sitting on his throne, a light smile on his face as he regarded the distrubed Jagdarmee member. On his right was his faithful servant, Haschwald. On his left was a pink-haired woman that the Jagdarmee didn't recognize.

He knew, however, from the crazed look in her eyes that he never wanted to cross her.

"Juhabach-sama, we've got trouble!" he shouted at his leader. If it were any other situation, he would've bowed in his presence.

"Hmm, what? You are part of the Jagdarmee, right? Where is Kirge?" Juhabach asked.

"D-Dead..." the Jagdarmee member stuttered out.

"He's dead! They're all dead! Kirge-taichou and the two Stern Ritter sent with us are all dead!" he shouted desperately at his supreme leader.

Juhabach had the decency to look _slightly_ taken aback.

"What?! On that mission of yours!? Who killed them?!"

"V-Vulpes C, your highness! Although, I've heard that his real name is Naruto! The leader of the Arrancar, whatever the case. He's the one who killed them, and so quickly too! It was a massacre! They never stood a chance!" He paused for a moment.

"He said that if we wanted to talk negotiations, you needed to go, Juhabach-sama!"

Instead of being wiped off his face, Juhabach's smile actually got wider. He relaxed in his seat, and turned to look at Sakura. Her eyes had widened significantly after she heard the Jagdarmee speak Naruto's name, and even he couldn't tell what she was thinking.

The woman looked quite a bit different than when he had last seen her. Her face had been covered in shadow then, but now one could see that she looked like a woman of around twenty-five, with shoulder-length pink hair pulled into a short ponytail, which was looped through the back of her Vandenreich cap.

Instead of being totally naked like earlier, she was fully clothed in a custom-made Vandenreich uniform, similar in appearance to Bambietta's. Her Zanpakutou was held at her hip, a fairly short katana with a pink hilt and sea shell shaped guard.

"It's alright! I know you didn't mean to fail, now did you?" Juhabach asked, a little too politely. The Jagdarmee blinked for a moment, before a hole the size of a basketball was punched straight through his stomach.

Nobody flinched.

"I guess those three weren't enough to convince them. We still need Arrancar power though, and they're the only ones who can supply it. I'll have to send someone who is capable enough to show off our power to them." Juhabach mused. He turned to the left.

"Sakura, would you be willing to pick up Kirge's mission and recruit some more Arrancar. With your power, it shouldn't be difficult to defeat them, even if their leader seems to be somewhat powerful..."

Sakura smiled deviously, but didn't say a word. That was enough confirmation that Juhabach needed.

* * *

The Vandenreich palace lie in ruin, similar to Las Noches.

The wooden infrastructure had been completely demolished, but this time dead bodies were sprinkled all over the blood, and the smell of blood lingered in the air.

On top of the pile of wood, Haruno Sakura stood triumphant, still dressed in her Vandenreich uniform, though her feet was resting on the dead body of Juhabach.

For she had killed all of them. Every last one.

Sakura had no use for the Vandenreich anymore, no, now that she learned of Naruto's whereabouts, she had bigger fish to try. Her hatred of Hollows not withstanding, she would find him.

Yet... her other objective, bring the members of Konoha to Hueco Mundo, was still in play. If only for her own personal desire and gain, she would get them to Hueco Mundo.

Especially with her upcoming ceremony within Soul Society, it would be perfect. But first, she needed to find Naruto...

* * *

Naruto suited himself up for the attack on Soul Society, and was about to call all his Espada to him so they could begin the invasion. Szayel had already completed all preparations.

They left... _today_. They destroyed Soul Society..._ today._

Naruto could hardly wait.

He fastened his Zanpakutou to his waist and adjusted his Arrancar uniform, descending from his throne and crossing the longhall. He opened the flap to his tent, stepping out into the Hueco Mundo air.

As he breached outside, a pale Arrancar around his size approached him. Like many of the other Espada, Ulquiorra's outward appearance in his unreleased had changed much. Other than his mask covering more of his head, there wasn't anything.

Despite that, Ulquiorra had proven himself immensely when he revealed that he was the only one before the use of the Hougyoku to have obtained Segunda Etapa. With that goal already reached, he had spent the next ten years simply improving his already existing abilities, and as such he had attained the position of Segunda Espada, behind only Naruto himself.

"Naruto, we're having a little issue. A random woman showed up in the camp today asking for you; she's already killed three of our Arrancar. Should I send her your way?" Ulquiorra asked.

Naruto raised an eyebrow. Could it be more Quincies?

"Uh, yeah, go ahead and do that. I'll see what the fuss is about and deal with her myself if I have to..." he said, still a little confused. What was the big deal about this woman? As long as she didn't kill any Espada, there was nothing to worry about.

Naruto's attitude did a quick one-eighty as the woman in question entered his field of vision and noticed him. Her features were a little different, and she looked older, but he knew that shock of pink hair from anywhere.

Haruno Sakura.

Naruto's passive face took on an _extreme _look of hatred as his brow furrowed. His pupils began tiny pinpricks in a sea of red, and he bit his bottom lip in a massive sneer, his fangs poking through his mouth. He snarled so loudly it might as well have been a scream, and released the full brunt of his reiatsu.

All around the camp, Arrancar and Hollows alike held their breath as they felt the full force of their leaders reiatsu, smothering them like an ocean of water. Ulquiorra, who was the most resistant to it, turned his back stoically, but even he had a bead of sweat rolling down his cheek. He had only felt this force of reiatsu from Naruto once before, and that could only mean one thing.

Something big was about to happen, and they weren't even in Soul Society yet.

Rage still on his face, Naruto drew his Zanpakutou immediately, rushing Sakura and slammed his sword down on her with all the force he could muster. The clang of metal was heard all around the camp as Sakura actually managed to block Naruto's attack.

Sakura was standing there, a lustful smirk on her face as she blocked Naruto's first attack. She slowly licked her lips and pushed off Naruto with her own Zanpakutou. Naruto lightly jumped back, putting distance between the two.

"Sakura..." he sneered.

He clutched his Zanpakutou tight in his hands when he saw the smirk on her face.

"I've been looking_ all _over for you, Naruto, and I've finally found you!" she said, her tongue peeking out of her lips yet again. She didn't to sense Naruto's extreme hatred towards her. Or better yet, she sensed it... and was _drinking __it up._

_"I can FEEL your anger..."_ Neither Naruto nor Sakura realized that she just uttered one of the most famous movie quotes ever, but the words did their purpose and had a profound effect on Naruto.

"Bitch!" he roared. He sheathed his Zanpakutou for a moment.

He then put both of his hands out, spreading each and every one of his fingers out a fair distance. He concentrated his reiatsu to his hands, where each of his fingers lit up with a little blip of orange.

"Diez Ceros!" he shouted, as the blips of light formed into individual Ceros.

The ten beams rocketed off of his hands, each one almost as strong as a normal Cero. The ten beams of orange traveled in a straight line for a second, before they merged together to form one giant attack that barreled towards Sakura.

Sakura held one hand out, catching the giant Cero with her palm. Her grin faltered as she realized she didn't have the strength to fully stop it, and just as she was about to be overwhelmed, she dodged to the side instantly.

The blast obliterated everything in its path, including a few tents with Arrancar inside them. Sakura whistled at the damage, smiling as she grabbed her Vandenreich cap and threw it to the side.

Naruto fired another round of the same attacks, and Sakura's eyes narrowed a little bit in mirth.

"It seems you've become much stronger over the years; you're even leading this massive. Truly, the destructive power of this attack in incredible. But..." she trailed off, talking to herself.

She held her Zanpakutou out.

"Hado #91: Senjuu Kouten Taihou!" she said. Pink dots, similar in appearance to Naruto's Cero, formed in the air around Sakura like a halo. When she fired them off, it converged on the rapidly approaching Cero, effectively cancelling out the attack in a gigantic explosion.

The impact of the two Kidou and the Cero caused an enormous cloud of dust to rise in the area, giving both Naruto and Sakura cover. Naruto looked around for her, but when out of the corner of his eye he saw a quick flash of movement, he raised his Zanpakutou and swung out.

Sakura was in mid-air, her Zanpakutou slashing downwards at Naruto's scalp. Naruto met her attack with an upward slice, grinding his Zanpakutou against hers.

Sakura swung her hips to the rhythm of the attack, getting herself pumped up for the fight. Naruto himself seemed to get over his initial anger towards Sakura, and was now in euphoric fight-mode, where he could _finally_ kill this bitch.

"This is too good! I never thought that one of my targets would actually come to me!" Naruto guffawed. Sakura wasn't phased.

"Eh, it seems like you're still obsessed with getting a date with me! Let me ask you, do you love me?" Sakura whispered that last part, as a look of lust entered her eyes. She stood there in an almost seductive position, crooning at Naruto.

"Huh?" Naruto asked. Her behavior was perplexing, even to him.

"I'm asking if you love me! I can feel such strong feelings coming from you; it has to be love!" she shouted chaotically at Naruto, who laughed raucously at her.

"Love you? Fuck no, bitch!"

That seemed to spurn on the first negative reaction that Sakura gave Naruto. A vein popped on her forehead, but her entire face reddened in anger and her eyes bulged out in rage.

"WHAAAT?" she screamed in indignation, like it was the most surprising thing in the world. She released her full reiatsu in her rage, and swung her Zanpakutou to the sky.

"Tempt..." she shouted, as water surrounded the tip of her blade. Naruto was on guard.

"Hmm..." he muttered.

"Hankara!" she finished her Zanpakutou release.

The wave of water wrapped around her katana, glowing with Sakura's pink reiatsu. She thrust it down into the ground, sending a shockwave into the dirt and sand.

Naruto focused on the ripple of force that was moving through the ground, before his eyes snapped open and he jumped off of the ground, landing in mid-air right above a hut. Arrancar that were in the surrounding area moved out of the way of the fight, hoping they didn't get caught in the crossfire. Whatever the invader was doing couldn't be good either.

The ripple of force settled, and it was quiet for a few seconds. But after that, a jet of water erupted from the ground like a geyser, spreading a few inches of water depth throughout the surrounding area. Naruto heard a rumbling from underneath the hut he was floating near, before he dodged another geyser that erupted from the ground.

While he was moving through the air, focusing on the water, Sakura attacked him in mid-air, trying to lop off his head in her rage. Naruto just got his sword up in time, but the force of her blow was staggering.

Yet, there was something off about the whole thing. The water on the ground didn't look normal or anything. Normal water was completely clear, or it was in the human world at least, but this water looked shinier.

It seemed to have a lustrous quality to it, and it was setting off alarm bells in Naruto's head.

Sakura's Zanpakutou also changed. Instead of a normal, metal katana like an unreleased Zanpakutou, it was now completely made out of calcium. To be more specific, it seemed to be completely made out of sea shell.

The hilt was made of sea shell, the guard was made of sea shell, and the blade was made of sea shell. It seemed sharp too, but what really caught Naruto's eye was the tip of blade, which was actually wide instead of narrow, with a large opening that ran into the blade. It was like there was a conch shell merged straight into the sword.

Naruto swung his sword three more times in quick succession, and Sakura blocked them all. His last strike actually got caught in the ridges of her sword, and it broke his rhythm when he yanked it out quickly.

Using his momentary confusion, Sakura flipped over Naruto's head, attempted to carve in his unprotected back. Naruto swung around to match her speed, driving his own blade into the hole of the conch.

He attempted to wrestle Sakura's released sword from her grasp, but Sakura's insane strength remained tried and true even during the afterlife.

Naruto was beginning to overwhelm her, and Sakura was growling at him. However, before Naruto could wrench the blade fully from her grasp, a jet of highly pressurized water shot from the conch on Sakura's blade, barreling right into Naruto's talk.

The force of the blow pushed Naruto back as the water seared his stomach. He grunted in pain as he impacted a hut directly behind, destroying it completely.

He rose from the rubble, wiping blood away from his mouth. There was something _off_ about this battle.

Sakura had proven herself for a very worthy opponent; he couldn't even fathom how she had gotten this strong. And yet, her Shikai was surprisingly _dull._ She used it well obviously, but he thought that someone of her caliber should have a more impressive Shikai.

That, and the strange quality of the water put him on edge. There was something missing here.

If she was hiding her current abilities, it would only make things more difficult in the long run. Unfortunately for him, she also gave off no clues as to what her other abilities could be, except for the shine upon the water. But he had no idea what it did.

He projected a look of hatred at Sakura, and it was clear the she could feel his emotions. Strangely, his hatred for her seemed to put her at ease, and she giggled sadistically a little bit, her rage all but forgotten.

"Oh, I see what's going on! You're playing hard to get, aren't you?" she asked, to the confusion of Naruto. Was this bitch confusing hatred for love or something? She was as crazy as him.

Sakura wove her sword around, dispelling her Shikai and sheathing her blade.

"What are you doing? You know this battle's not over yet. I'm gonna kill you right here, bitch!" Naruto shouted. Sakura smirked at Naruto; she knew how to get the advantage over him.

"No, you're not! And do you know why? It's because I am a necessary asset if you want to truly destroy Soul Society!" she blurted out, making Naruto halt in place.

"How do you know about that?"

"Oh, please, Naruto!" she snorted. "I was a double agent for Aizen within Soul Society before you took him out. I knew you were the Primera Espada, and I knew all about your desire to destroy Soul Society. The only thing I didn't know was the you had the stones to actually challenge and defeat Aizen, and your location over the past few years. And now, I'm going to join the winning team!"

Naruto attacked once again, slamming his blade into the ground as Sakura dodged to the side.

"I don't believe you, bitch! What makes you think you have anything you could offer me..."

Sakura held up a finger.

"It's simple, really. I offer you what might be the most important piece of your entire plan. You see, I am the Captain of the Kidou Corps within Soul Society, but I'm getting a promoted tomorrow, due to my creation of a new type of Kidou. From that point on, I will become a new member of the Zero Division, or otherwise known as the Royal Guard. I assume you know the only way one is able to access the Reiokyuu?" she asked rhetorically.

Naruto was silent.

"I'm sure you have your own little plan worked out at this point, but at this point the only way to access the Reiokyuu is through a member of the Royal Guard. I assume that you had planned to lure them out of their hiding place when you completely destroyed Soul Society. That might be effective, but it's a risky move if you're trying to access the Reiokyuu. I am the only way you can have guaranteed passage to the Reiokyuu."

"Not to mention, as I right now I could open a portal to the real world or Soul Society and tell them all about your invasion, rendering your surprise attack useless..."

"Bitch..." he whispered. The Libro de Ciclos didn't cover too much on actual passage to the Reiokyuu; it only told him what he needed to do once he actually breached that dimension. A member of the Royal Guard was necessary, but he figured he could bide his time once he had finished taking out the regular part of Soul Society.

Now, however, their plans could go a lot smoother.

He contemplated for a moment, before he clenched his fists in anger.

"FUUUUUCCCKKKKKKK!" he screamed to the heavens, his anger shaking through the nearby huts and longhall. As much as he wanted to deny her, he knew he possibly couldn't at this rate. He could try and kill her and find some way to harness the power of her bones, but he was getting restless.

He needed to destroy Soul Society, and he needed to do it now.

"Fine! Have it your way! You'll help us access the Reiokyuu when we're finished destroying the main part of Soul Society, but _you will not_ help us with main attack on Seireitei! I don't want to see your face while we're fighting!" Naruto spat at her.

Sakura smirked.

"Excellent, love. I'm looking forward to working with you again; I've missed you over the years!" she winked at Naruto, who sneered at her. This was an infuriating thorn in his side.

Sakura had already put her hands together, almost like she was doing hand seals from the living world. However, she glowed with a pink reiatsu, and a few seconds later, a portal had opened in mid-air space. It was almost indentical in appearance to Garganta, except that the void inside was a bright white instead of a cold black.

"I will have the preparations for your passage to the Reiokyuu ready tomorrow, as soon as I am promoted," she said, as she disappeared into the void, which then rippled closed.

Naruto remained standing there, a sour look upon his face.

"You don't trust her, do you?" a new voice said, stepping out of the shadows. Naruto's pissy face turned to view Ulquiorra stepping out of the awnings of a hut.

"Of course I don't. She's a Shinigami, after all, and I can tell: she's changed even since she died. I know that's obvious, considering she probably died over three-hundred years ago, but still, she baffles me. I can't tell if she's leading us into a trap, or if she legitimately wants to help us. Even if that's true, I can't _stand_ taking help from a bitch I want to kill..."

"You're going to kill her once she's not useful anymore, aren't you?" Ulquiorra deadpanned. Naruto looked at Ulquiorra.

"Did you even need to ask?"

"This may not even hinder your plan, regardless of whether or not it is a trap." Ulquiorra stated.

"How so?"

"Think about it, Naruto. We have eluded the eyes of Soul Society for years. It is safe to say that they do not know about us. If she truly was a double agent for Soul Society and Aizen, she cannot come out with that information in Soul Society. She would likely be executed, and the fact that she seemed to be part of that Quincy organization also seems to add credence to that. Despite that, even if she immediately goes back to Soul Society and relays this newfound information to the Seireitei. There is not enough suitable time for them to prepare countermeasures for our attack. We are attacking them today, within hours. The most she can do is warn them of our attack, which will do no more than impede progress slightly..."

"Is there a chance that she lied about her loyalties, and has truly been loyal to Soul Society. Could the Soul Society have perhaps staged this display, her being part of the Vandenreich and a double agent for Aizen?"

"I don't think so. According to our latest report, the Soul Society has not figured out how to use Garganta yet. That means that her true loyalties would have to be to the Vandenreich or as Aizen's double agent. It's the only way that she'd even be able to be here in the first place."

"You saw that "Garganta" though, right? What if she's the secret to Soul Society getting to Hueco Mundo?"

"I did see that "Garganta". However, Szayel's spies have kept good reports within the Soul Society ever since we've connected to their world. They do not know how to use Garganta. She is keeping her power a secret from them..."

"I see... I will trust you on this matter, Ulquiorra, but we've wasted too much time as is. I'll take your advice; we will attack now in order to prevent them from taking countermatters, on the off chance that she is loyal to Soul Society... Is Szayel ready?"

"Yes..."

Naruto grinned, his previous mood evaporating.

"Good, let's go..."

* * *

And, we're done.

Again, the next chapter will be the last one of around this length. After that, they're going to get far, far longer, probably around twice as long, so there will be chapters that are longer than 10,000 words.

**Translations**

Hankara: Half Shell

Reiokyuu: Spirit King Palace

Diez Ceros: Ten Ceros

Hadou #91: Senjuu Kouten Taihou: Thousand-Hand Bright Heaven Culling-Sear

Bye,

**_Alban55_**


	50. Invasión de la Garganta

Okay, here we go. Now is the time for the second-to-last arc to begin.

So, I learned something recently. The author brown phantom held a "Best Naruto Story" poll last year where he gathered the apparent Top 100 Naruto stories nominated by various fans and determined which was the "best" Naruto story on the site. And yep, Amenaza was an option. It ended up in sixtieth place. Now out of hundred, that may not seem like very high, but considering the fact that it made it on there at all means that this story has made tremendous progress. So with that, thank you.

* * *

Chapter 50: Invasión de la Garganta

The Konoha Association was ready for battle.

Sakura walked through the hallways of the Seireitei, her Shinigami robes billowing as she walked. It was mere hours before her promotion to the Zero Division, before her bones would officially become the Ouken. When that happened, she could officially betray the Soul Society in favor of Naruto's invasion, but even then she didn't have much of a part in it until the grand finale.

But first... she needed to remove some of the adversaries that Naruto would have to face, even without his express permission.

Split up the forces, to be put more casually. She had created that Garganta-esque Kidou spell just a few years ago, and that is how she was able to be promoted to the Royal Guard.

She had always remained distant from the Konoha Association, and they had always remained distant from her. But when she announced to the world just a few weeks ago that she had cracked the secret to a Garganta, they had contacted her for the first time.

They had gotten a warrant for an invasion of Hueco Mundo decades ago, but the problem of the Garganta had always loomed directly over their heads. With it finally solved, they could extract justice from Konoha's destroyers.

And that was exactly what Sakura wanted.

There were many members of the Konoha Association, and many of them were elite Shinigami. Minato and Kushina in particular, were among the strongest Shinigami in the Soul Society, beaten only by Yamamoto, and although they didn't know it... herself.

She had coordinated this perfectly. Set up an alliance with Naruto's force while making sure that the Konoha Association would invade Hueco Mundo. Best case scenario, they remove them indefinitely. Worst case, they still have enough time to bide in order to split the enemy's forces in two.

Although they didn't know it, they had played right into her hand. She was on her way right now to set up the preparations for their passage to Hueco Mundo, just as she was sure that Naruto was setting up his preparations. They were sure to miss each other.

She opened the door to the Association's meeting hall, which had to be renovated over the years. It was now a massive auditorium, where the members of the Association would sit around in a circle. The leaders and more higher ranking members would be seating near the front, and they were the ones who would be leading the charge.

The Association had grown quite a bit over the years, as more and more villagers from Konoha made it there.

And yet, the Association had never found Naruto. The thought seemed to depress Minato, even more so than when he learned of Konoha's actions on his corpse, as well as Kakashi's death within Hueco Mundo. All the more reason to invade it; one of their comrades had been killed by Hollows. Sakura didn't understand why they hadn't figured out the truth yet; perhaps they were too caught up in their own pride to realize it.

She took a seat at the end of the chairman's table, rudely putting her feet up on the table. The others didn't bat an eyelash at her behavior; they were too eager to get things done. There was a blackboard at the front of the room; clearly they had been discussing tactics before she got here.

Minato was leading the organization of this attack, and the entire Association would be invading Hueco Mundo. That was hundreds of Shinigami, many of them talented. It was odd; when they were shinobi they were used to sending out teams of no more than five. Now they were leading a squad of many more numbers at the same time, and yet Minato was not being overwhelmed by having all of them at his command.

They seemed to be almost done with their meeting, which meant that all that needed to be done now, was the opening of the Garganta.

"And, the Twelfth Division says they've pinpointed the location where Vulpes C is, or at least where he took the Konoha villagers many years ago. It is likely that the Hollow is not there anymore, nor is his army. Regardless, we should be able to find some clues as to their whereabouts once we reach Hueco Mundo..." Minato explained.

"Question?" Shikamaru asked, raising his hand.

"Yes, Shikamaru?"

"Who will be participating in this invasion?"

"Everyone. We are using the full force of the Konoha Association to invade Hueco Mundo and achieve our goals. The only one who will be absent from the attack shall be Sakura herself, who is to remain and perform the Garganta Kidou... Speaking of..." he trailed off, leading into the next step of the planning. The final step.

"Sakura, are your preparations done? Are you prepared to lead us into Hueco Mundo, at the spot of Vulpes C's hideout?" Minato asked.

Sakura smiled deviously...

* * *

The "Garganta" opened a portal on the sands of Hueco Mundo, and the fifteen to twenty chairman of the Konoha Association, as well as the lesser seated and unseated Shinigami of the Association were deposited onto the desert sands on Hueco Mundo. It may have seemed like a low number, considering they were apt to take on the entirety of Hueco Mundo itself, but with their power, they could perhaps pull it off.

Sakura had gotten the coordinates of the area correctly. They had been deposited outside of a very suspicious looking palace, but the place looked fairly abandoned.

Minato cleared his throat and turned to address the entire group. His riveting speeches had proven to unify the massive number of Shinigami in the past, and his skill as a Captain meant he had the power to command them.

"Okay, everyone, we have reached our destination. This is the area where the reiatsu samples have pointed to. This is the area where Vulpes C supposedly made his hideout..."

"Looks more like a palace than a hideout to me, Minato..." Jiraiya piped up from the front of the line, staring up at the palace. Minato grinned.

"Yeah, his "hideout". However, we must be prepared if Vulpes C does not reside her anymore. Even if he does not, there may be some clues here so we can determine his true whereabouts. For now, enter the attack formation!"

The Shinigami of the Konoha Association cheered, their Zanpakutous thrust into the air in a battle cry. Minato turned around, as two members of the Association opened the large gate barring their access to the palace. If Vulpes C was here, the security was very lax.

When the gates were fully open, Minato directed the Shinigami in.

"Okay, let's go..." In all honesty, they were prepared for anything in there. Vulpes C apparently had a ton of Hollows underneath his command, which they had taken into account during their invasion plans.

"Go, go! Find the enemy!" Kushina shouted from the back, directing the Shinigami inside the gates. When the last one had breached the area, she flashed over to her husband.

"I can tell already... this place is completely abandoned. That surprise attack worked for nothing; we're not going to find anything here..." she commented. Minato looked contemplative.

The Shinigami were milling around uncomfortably, seemingly looking for any enemy they could attack. Nothing sprouted up.

"What do you think we should do, Minato? Investigate the area?" Jiraiya said, walking up to the husband and wife pair.

"Send us! We'll make sure to find any clues!" came a voice from the crowd, as Inuzuka Kiba emerged from the crowd of Shinigami, along with the two Hyuuga cousins, as well as everyone else from his oldest son's generation.

The Hyuuga cousins had lost the ability to use the Byakugan, and Kiba didn't have Akamaru with him any longer, but they still were specialists in the tracking field.

Minato looked around the group. Hinata, Kiba, Neji, Shikamaru, and Ino. The five of them were all ranked at various levels within their division, but that did not mean they were at the level of their rank. Rather, they were all Vice-Captain level or above, which meant that were one of the most elite groups within the Konoha Association.

"Okay, you guys. That sounds conducive to the plan. Report back here immmediately if you find anything worth checking out. We'll see if we can get a lead on Vulpes C's trail..." Minato said.

* * *

While the Konoha Association was searching for Vulpes C's trail within the Hueco Mundo, a gigantic portal had opened up in the skies above Western Rukongai, directly near the Seireitei. It was the exact area where Ichigo and company had infiltrated Soul Society several years before.

"Incursion signal outside west wall! I repeat, incursion signal outside west wall! Soul Society is now on alert! A mandatory Captain's meeting will take place in approximately ten minutes! All available Captains report to the 1st Division barrack's immediately!" an alarm from within Seireitei sounded, which could be heard by the entirety of the Shinigami force.

The gate fell as the portal widened above the skies of Soul Society, and ten streaks of light rocketed from the depths of the portal, crashing to earth into Western Rukongai.

Shinigami ran to and fro after they heard the announcement of the incursion, filling out their various duties as the Captains flocked to the barracks of the 1st Division.

Meanwhile, the citizens of Rukongai, the normal souls, gathered around the site of the impact, watching it warily as the dust began to clear. Naruto stretched his arms, getting the kinks out of him as he climbed out of the hole first. The other Espada took a few more moments.

"So this is Soul Society, huh? Although we have a few secret outposts here, I've never actually been. Doesn't seem like a very nice place, does it?" he said to himself, as the people began to crowd around him.

"What's going on? Who are you guys?" a brave man asked, approaching Naruto as he got out of the crater, taking in his odd clothing and the mask fragment on his face. Naruto stared at him as if he were stupid, a condescending grin on his face and bloodshot eyes.

Quick as a flash, he drew his Zanpakutou and cleaved off the man's legs from underneath him, allowing him to crumple out on the ground and bleed to death from his stumps of legs.

"These guys aren't even close to being Shinigami..." Naruto noted, sheathing his Zanpakutou as Ulquiorra and the other Espada climbed out of the crater themselves.

"Of course not. We are in Rukongai at the moment. The Seireitei would be over there..." Ulquiorra commented, pointing to the area where there was an enormous gate blocking the way.

"Ah, that would be the gate? It's made of Sekki Stone, so we'll have to open it. Fortunately, we have more than enough muscle to take care of that, so no problems. Once it's open, we call the rest of the force."

"So, let's go..." Naruto lead the charge, as the other nine Espada fell into step behind him, casually walking up to the gate. A large shadow fell over them, and all ten of them looked up, unimpressed, as an enormous man leapt over the wall and crashed down in front of them, creating a large shockwave.

"Oh? Ryoka? Haven't had any unauthorized intruders since the incident with the Ichigo boy. But no matter, the fact that you're here means you seek access to Seireitei without a pass. Since it's my job to deal with unauthorized intruders, I, Jidanbou, will stop you here..." the giant said, pulling out two axes from his coat.

"Hmm, we're fighting already?" Baraggan piped up. Naruto still looked unimpressed.

"I guess so. Yammy, take care of this, will you? And when you're done, open the gate for us as well..." Naruto ordered. Yammy flexed his muscles, ripping his Arrancar robe slightly.

"You got it!" the Décima said, taking the forefront, while the others backed off.

"Hmm, you're up first, eh? Then you'll be the first to go, shrimpy!" Jidanbou said.

"Hey, no ones call me shrimpy to my face, fatass! You're just asking to die!" Yammy shouted back, pounding his fists together.

Jidanbou swung his giant axe to the side in a great display of strength, trying to crush Yammy where he stood. Yammy just clenched his fist in response, throwing a punch forward to meet the axe.

The axe impacted Yammy's fist, and it didn't even come close to breaking through his Hierro. Rather, Yammy pressed the attack, shattering the axes into a million pieces.

"Wha? Impossible!" Jidanbou said. Ichigo had shattered the blades before, but he still had the handles. This guy straight up obliterated his axes, to the point of no return.

"You don't have time to mourn over your weapons..." Yammy shouted, charging up a Cero in his fists. He shot it upward, and Jidanbou screamed as the blast engulfed him, burning a lethal hole in his torso.

Jidanbou flopped uselessly against the gate, blood pouring from his wound as his thrashes got weaker and weaker. With the gatekeeper out of the wall, Yammy grabbed the bottom of the gate with one hand, and threw it up with so much force that it jammed and got stuck open...

* * *

"Minato-sama!"

Minato turned around as he heard a heavily breathing voice get closer to him. Kiba was rushing up to him as fast as he could go, a sign that he apparently had news for him.

The other members of the search party were also running up from behind, though not as quickly as Kiba was.

"What it is, you guys? Have you found anything?"

Kiba caught his breath really quick, gasping for air. This was important news.

"We've found... people!" Kiba announced to his leader, and Minato raised an eyebrow.

"What do you mean, you've found people? Are they Arrancar?" Minato asked. That was the most obvious explanation, because Arrancar were humanoid most of the time.

"No... they're not Arrancar! One of them seems to be a Shinigami, and the other seems to be a human! You have to come with us; we'll show you where they are!" Kiba said.

"Lead the way..." Minato agreed, motioning to the other leaders of the group to follow them, while ordering the lower ranking members of the Association to stand idle.

Kiba brought the group to what seemed to be an abandoned arena within the confines of the palace. Minato didn't realize that sporting events were held within Hueco Mundo, but he kind the feeling that he wouldn't like whatever he found in there.

Rin was darting her eyes around to and fro, apparently looking at the architecture of the building. Minato had to admit that it was well made, as he walked into the main part of the arena.

The bleachers were currently above him, and they had made their way down onto the floor of the arena, where the games would take place, apparently. Indeed, there were in fact two people here, who had apparently made this place a temporary home of sorts.

But they weren't just ordinary people. Minato recognized them immediately.

"You... you're... Kurosaki Ichigo..." Minato commented, noticing that the boy hadn't changed a day from over ten years ago. Beside him was a grown woman of around twenty-six, but he easily recognized her as Inoue Orihime.

"And... Inoue Orihime! What are you two doing here?" Minato asked incredulously, as both humans looked at them for the first time. Ichigo was the first to speak.

It took him a little while to remember, seeing as he squinted his eyes for a few seconds, but it clicked with him before long.

"Minato-san? Kushina-san? And all of you guys?" he said, recognizing a few of them within the group, such as Shikamaru. A few other members recognized him back, and they talked amongst themselves for a second.

"Kurosaki-san, how long have you been here?"

"Oh, I see. It's been so long since we invaded Las Noches. I mean, Kakashi-san died in the invasion, so you must've assumed that I did as well, seeing that I did not make it back. I got stranded in Hueco Mundo all those years ago, when all of my friends died, and have been trying to eke out an existence ever since..." Ichigo explained.

The company's eyes softened significantly.

"Well, we can take you back, Ichigo, when we have finished up our business here. We were all hurt deeply by Kakashi's death, but at least there is one survivor from that day. But right now, we are on official business, tracking down the one who destroyed Konoha..." Kushina piped up.

"Konoha, that's the village you all lived in while you were alive, correct?" Orihime said, joining into the conversation. Minato nodded.

"Yes, it was destroyed a long time ago. We have a culprit, but we never figured out just how it was destroyed or what happened to the villages, hence part of the reason for our invasion..." Minato explained.

"This may sound strange..." Ichigo added. "But... while we were living here, we met someone from Konoha, and we... kinda... at least somewhat learned what happened to it..."

The company perked up at that, and Minato pressured.

"You mean there was someone from Konoha who was still alive? Where are they now?" Minato asked.

"It's probably best I take this one from the top. We arrived here a few days ago on our vagabond, and almost immediately discovered that this place..." he patted the ground. "Was a trapdoor..."

"We managed to open the thing, but when we did this girl crawled out of the hole. She was covered in blood and completely insane, and I could only understand pieces of what she was saying. Apparently she was taken there and held against her will, but she talked about killing creatures or something a lot too..."

"After that, she took my sword when my guard was down and killed herself almost instantly..." Ichigo admitted. They could tell that he was fairly torn up over the whole thing.

The company deflated, but Minato had one final thing to ask Ichigo.

"Did she mention anything about who did this to her, and where that Hollow might be?" Minato asked, a dangerous tone in his voice. Reignited feelings of anger burst forth, and he was prepared to possibly find the culprit.

Ichigo thought about that for a moment, closing his eyes and thinking.

"She did repeat this one name over and over. Said something about how he put her down there, and I don't know, but there was something about him that linked her capture and the strange creatures she mentioned..."

Minato felt a bead of sweat roll down his face.

"What was the name? Was it Vulpes C?"

"No, it wasn't a codename or anything like that..." he trailed off.

"I believe the name was... Naruto?"

* * *

"This could be a sign of invasion. We must not forget the ryoka incident of ten years ago. Although we gained a powerful ally, that was also the most devastating invasion of the century, excluding Aizen's war. We must not let our guard down!" Yamamoto riveted, as he held the Captains meeting with ten of the thirteen current Captains.

Yamamoto was about to continue, but there was a crash in the distance, jolting the Captain's attention, and an alarm went off almost immediately after the fact.

"Emergency Alert! Emergency Alert! Invaders within the Seireitei! I repeat, Invaders within the Seireitei! All squads, take defensive positions! I repeat, take defensive positions!"

"What the?" Kyouraku said.

"Ryoka?" Kenpachi commented, seeming a little excited.

"So we are being invaded! That renders this Captain's meeting pointless. I'm dismissing all of you here! Return to your divisions and take defensive wartime measures. Also, due to the current absence of 3rd Division Captain Uzumaki Kushina, 5th Division Captain Namikaze Minato, and 9th Division Captain Jiraiya, as well as the entire Konoha Association, I am nulling the restriction on Zanpakutou release for Captain-class personnel. All those who are Captain-class are to consider this invasion with special wartime procedures! That is all..." Yamamoto banged his staff, bringing an end to the meeting as the Captains filed out of the barracks.

The war had begun.

* * *

After Yammy had outright jammed the western gate on its hinges, Naruto gave out a sharp whistle. As soon as he did that, another portal, identical to the last one, opened directly above their heads. Naruto then turned to the rest of the Espada.

"I've given the invasion force the order to slaughter any Shinigami they come across, but have ordered them to flee on sight should they encounter a Captain. Defeating the Captains is our first priority, and should be limited to the members of the Espada. Slaughter every Shinigami you come across, but search for the Captains at all times, and crush them. Ulquiorra..." Naruto motioned to his right hand, who brought out a stack of papers and handed them to Naruto.

Naruto flipped through them for a few seconds, before pulling one out and showing it to the group.

"1st Division Captain and Sou-Taichou, Yamamoto Genryuusai-Shigekuni. If you encounter him, flee on sight. _I_ will be the one to hunt him down. Also..." he flipped through the papers again.

"5th Division Captain, Namikaze Minato. You may engage the target if you wish, but you will leave him alive and in suitable fighting condition. Everyone else is fair game for all of you. Keep that in mind..." Naruto explained. The Espada nodded at their commander.

"Once you have defeated a Captain, you will be move on to Stage 2 of the plan. You will find their key, and bring it to the Soukyoku Hill at the end of the invasion..." Naruto explained, before he walked ahead of the group and inside the Seireitei. Arrancar were beginning to spill out of the portal, ready to invade as well.

Some low-ranked Shinigami had already come to meet them, their swords out and at the ready. Naruto grinned, before he fired a quick Cero on all of them, tracing the beam across each of their heads. When it was over, around ten or so Shinigami lay dead in front of them, the first casualties of the war.

"I'll leave you guys here. Begin the attack!" Naruto shouted.

* * *

Okay, the Chapter is done. Now that the invasion has begun, I will be including a reference guide for the Konoha Association as well as the Espada. So here you go.

This is the last short chapter. Starting next time, they're getting much longer, till the end. 17 Chapters to go from this point on, time to power through this thing.

**Current Espada**

1st: Naruto Uzumaki

2nd: Ulquiorra Cifer

3rd: Coyote Starrk

4th: Baraggan Louisenbairn

5th: Tier Harribel

6th: Nnoitra Gilga

7th: Grimmjow Jeagerjaquez

8th: Zommari Rureaux

9th: Szayel Aporro Granz

10th: Yammy Llargo

**Konoha Association**

Namikaze Minato: 5th Division Captain

Uzumaki Kushina: 3rd Division Captain

Jiraiya: 9th Division Captain

Hatake Kakashi: 5th Division Vice-Captain (deceased)

Rin: 3rd Division Vice-Captain (Captain level)

Tsunade: 4th Division Vice-Captain (Captain level)

Sarutobi Hiruzen: Visored

Hyuuga Hinata: 13th Division Vice-Captain (above Vice-Captain level)

Nara Shikamaru: 8th Division 3rd Seat (above Vice-Captain level)

Inuzuka Kiba: 7th Division 4th Seat (Vice-Captain level)

Hyuuga Neji: 6th Division 3rd Seat (above Vice-Captain level)

Yamanaka Ino: 10th Division 3rd Seat (Vice-Captain level)


	51. Ciencias

Okay, here's the start of the really long chapters. They're about twice as long as my old chapters, so they'll be around 8000-13000 words usually. Maybe sometimes a little lower or higher.

* * *

Chapter 51: Ciencias

The Espada flashed out of existence as soon as Naruto gave his order, preparing to go to their own random direction within the Seireitei, searching for a Captain to hunt.

Arrancar poured into the Seireitei through the open gate, mowing down any Shinigami who would dare get in their way. It made sense in a way; the average Shinigami was pitifully weak, something an average Arrancar in his army would have no trouble dispatching of. He had left the force of regular Hollows on standby for now; they would come into play during Stage Two of the plan.

"Hmm, I'd best get in on some of this action myself..." Naruto noted, before he flashed away much like the other Espada. With the crowd of Arrancar closing in, the normal Shinigami would never be able to pick him out as their leader. As he used Sonido to get up on the rooftops, he noticed that a few fires had already been started within Seireitei.

There was a loud crash, and a building a distance away collapsed from under him. He heard laughing, and Yammy jumped onto the roof, reveling in the destruction he caused to a few dead Shinigami. He was firing Bala from the rooftop, before he jumped in the air to levitate there as a swing from a Zanpakutou almost caught him. He hung up and spammed more Bala.

Figures that he would be the one to make him the most noticeable, but when he looked down on the street directly below him, he saw Grimmjow, effortlessly slashing through Shinigami who were running to and fro, trying to make sense of the unexpected invasion while fulfilling their duties.

"Hurry, it's a ryoka! Kill it! Don't let him escape!" the Shinigami cried. Naruto scoffed, like any of them could be able to match Grimmjow in speed. They should be running away right now, not trying to engage their target. They might've lived longer.

"Can these even be called a ryoka invasion? There are so many Arrancar attacking!" another one cried, before Grimmjow bisected him down the middle, as other Shinigami began to get discouraged.

"It doesn't matter. Defend the Seireitei! Lay down your lives if you have to!" a particularly zealous Shinigami said, somewhere down there. Before long, he was killed as well.

Naruto moved away from the scene as he heard cries of pain as their lives were cut short. He had a Sou-Taichou to find, but first, he would engage on a little fun himself.

He hoped he could find someone, _anyone_ he had known from Konoha before he made his way to the First Division. He could kill random Shinigami all day long and be satisfied with his work, but what he really longed for was someone from Konoha to battle with. And kill, he couldn't forget kill.

Like Grimmjow, he himself descended into the streets, as Shinigami ran every direction. Ones who were near enough to him all stopped when he randomly appeared in front of him, his hands in his pockets.

"Tell me..." he said dangerously all of a sudden, to the group of Shinigami. "Do you know where I can find anyone from Konoha?" he asked the Shinigami who were warily approaching him. Something clicked within their heads, and they drew their Zanpakutous.

"What do you want with Minato-sama, ryoka scum?" asked one of the Shinigami, Minato being the forefront person from Konoha who came to their minds. Naruto picked up on that.

"Minato-_sama_?" Naruto mocked incredulously. "You really worship that asshole around here, don't you?"

"Shut up! Minato-sama is a great man! Greater than you'll ever be, ryoka!" another Shinigami pointed out.

"I don't care about that, but it's clear that you're not going to tell me where he nor anyone from Konoha is. I'm done with you people now..." he said, drawing his Zanpakutou. Within an instant, he had cut down all of the Shinigami in front of him.

They cried out in pain as they flopped to the ground uselessly, and in just a moment blood had covered the streets like a puddle from their combined wounds, soaking Naruto's sandals in the liquid.

He launched a quick Bala at another Shinigami who was rushing at him from afar, and quickly sidestepped and punched a hole in a Shinigami who was looking to attack him from behind.

"Now, where is the old fart?" Naruto asked himself. The most obvious solution would be at the First Division's headquarters, but to be sure he focused in on his Pesquisa, trying to find the strongest reiatsu within Soul Society.

He could even sense a little bit of residual reiatsu. He knew where his Espada were around the Soul Society, but he wondered if the people who came here from Konoha had a difference reiatsu, one that he could pick out.

For now, he just hoped he would bump into one person from Konoha. If he found one, he could find the rest.

* * *

Szayel was out of his element here.

He wasn't used to going to war, to actually be on the front-lines fighting a battle. He had no Fracción with him, and no time to prepare the usage of any of his nasty inventions.

He flipped through the copy of the catalog that Naruto had given him on the way Soul Society works, and from the first instance he knew which Division and which Captain he was going to target.

The Twelfth Division, and Kurotsuchi Mayuri-taichou.

Mayuri was a scientist like him, and it was clear to him that he probably thought in a similar way when it came to battle at least. He preferred to take action from the sidelines, using his intelligence and preparation of traps to win. Yet, the Twelfth Division's Captain didn't have any information on Naruto's Arrancar force yet, which meant that he was also unable to prepare for the incident.

He had studied the intricacies of Soul Society well before coming here; he would skip the barracks of the Twelfth Division and head straight for the Shinigami Research and Development Bureau, straight into the lab. Kurotsuchi Mayuri would most likely be there.

The Novena picked around a corner, eying the entrance to the Bureau itself, and the several labs that lie within its depths. There were no guards stationed outside, most likely they were off fulfilling other orders in wake of the invasion.

"Seriously, they leave one of the most important areas in Seireitei unguarded at a time like this. Next they'll leave the medical wing also unprotected. But, this works in favor for me..."

While Szayel contemplated how he was going to do things, the interior of the lab was a warzone itself. Researchers of the Division were at monitors, madly screaming numbers and data at the top of the their lungs as they attempted to find the reiatsu signals of Arrancar. The alarm was going off as the researchers picked up red and blue blips on their radar, showing the invasion in many different areas.

"We've picked up fourteen Arrancar near the Seventh Division's barracks. One of them is really going wild over there, it looks like. It's of a crimson color. The rest are colored blue."

"Shit, how many are there?" the 3rd Seat Akon said. He reached over to yell at Rin.

"Rin, what's the status on the perimeter outside the Bureau itself..." he ordered to the young man seated at the monitor in the corner, who seemingly wasn't paying attention until he got yelled at by his superior.

"Yes, sir. There seems to be..." he ate his words as a blip of crimson light showed itself on his monitor.

"Wait, we've got one! There's an Arrancar directly outside the bureau, colored crimson. It's an..." Rin was cut off, as the wall of the lab was suddenly carved apart from the outside, throwing the researchers off and creating even more tension within the room.

The section of wall that had been cut apart suddenly fell, crushing several researchers as well as snapping the cords to several of their tracking monitors that they were using to locate the Arrancar.

"Well, well. It seems that your Captain isn't here at the moment. No matter, my assignment is also to kill any Shinigami I come across, and I also want to take a look for myself on the strides Soul Society has made on science. Though..." he looked around the room, as the researchers got out of their seats and warily backed away from Szayel.

"It seems that there's nothing of importance within this room, which means I can fight here without really harming anything of value. If I could your Captain's specimen room though, then it would a different story. But, for now, I'm afraid you guys are going to be the sacrificial deaths to draw your Captain out of hiding. Ta-ta..." Szayel said.

"Quick, get Kurotsuchi-taichou!" Akon shouted at a random researcher. Szayel gave Akon a seductive smirk, placing one of his gloved hands on the hilt of his sword, drawing his Zanpakutou. With a quick flash, Szayel intercepted the researcher, cleaving him down the chest while also destroying several monitors and chairs directly behind.

Akon and several other researchers winced at both their dead comrade and the destroyed equipment, before Szayel turned to them.

"You are so predictable... how did you even become qualified researchers? If you worked for me, well, let's just say you'd all have been turned into edible Fracción by now. Not that I don't do that even with my valuable subordinates..." Szayel mused, flicking his Zanpakutou across another row of monitors.

The researchers backed away.

"You are all so very droll, and I'm not much of a fighter, mind. I think I'll finish up with you quickly, and then focus my other efforts on finding your Captain. I'm _particularly_ interested in dealing with him you see..." chatted Szayel casually.

"But, first..." he trailed off, holding his Zanpakutou to his mouth before opening it.

"Sip..."

He shoved the blade down his throat.

"Fornicarás..."

* * *

"I understand. I will head out to battle..."

That was the voice of Kuchiki Byakuya, who was sitting in his office completing a report on the ryoka invasion. A messenger kneeled in front of him, relaying the message that all Captains were now required out on the battlefield. Shinigami were being slaughtered in massive amounts of numbers, and the purpose to the ryoka's invasion had not yet been determined.

"Unfortunately, Kuchiki-taichou, we are currently missing three Captains as well as several of Soul Society's greatest fighters. The Kidou Corps is also currently missing its leader, so they cannot take action at the moment as well. To compensate, the remaining ten Captains must take on the duties of all the missing divisions, and efficiently run Seireitei's defensive tactics... This is a direct order from 1st Division Captain and Captain-Commander of the Gotei 13, Yamamoto Genryuusai-Shigekuni..." the messenger also explained.

"The Kidou Corps is inactive. Haruno-taichou rarely takes action with her division, but during a wartime crisis even she must've been ordered to join the battle. If I may inquire as to the business of the Kidou Corps?" Byakuya asked.

"Yes, sir! Apparently, with her creation of the Garganta-based Kidou that allowed the Konoha Association to invade Hueco Mundo, she has been promoted. She is currently undergoing a ceremony within the Reiokyuu to be promoted to the Royal Guard."

Byakuya sighed.

"And such an event had to happen on a truly momentous occasion. A pity..." he said distantly, as he dismissed the messenger, standing up from his desk.

"Kuchiki-taichou!" one of Byakuya's subordinates barged into the office, covered in blood. Byakuya was just finishing strapping his Zanpakutou to his hip.

"The Sixth Division is under attack! Four soldiers have died within the 5th District!" he cried, falling to his knees. Byakuya remained stoic.

"I am aware; I have felt the reiatsu blanketing this place for several minutes. I am about to head out myself and engage the enemy. You! Relay this order to the rest of the division. Have groups three and six go support the Thirteenth Division, and groups two and five are to engage with any enemy contact around the vicinity of the Sixth Division's barracks," he ordered.

"Yes, sir!" the Shinigami saluted. Byakuya had felt that reiatsu. Renji was at the Vice-Captains meeting, but it was far beyond what anyone in his division could handle. He had already felt four reiatsus vanish under it, members of his own division.

Before Byakuya could even exit his own office, a Shinigami, split cleanly in two flew into the room and splattered against the far wall directly behind Byakuya's desk, staining the wall with blood.

"Yo, I take it you're the big-shot Captain around here?!" came a loud, raucous voice, exactly the polar opposite of Byakuya. Byakuya put his hand on the hilt of his Zanpakutou. A figure walked up to directly underneath the doorway, and randomly slashed off the top half of the wall above the door, apparently so he could fit in the room.

The first thing Byakuya noticed about him was that he was very tall. So tall he could barely fit in the office without hitting his head on the ceiling. He lugged around a bizarre Zanpakutou; double bladed scythes that looked very much like the crescent moon.

"'Sup, I'm the Sexta Espada, Nnoitra Gilga!"

Byakuya clinged onto a few facets of that introduction. One was the number. Sexta. The sixth Espada out of ten, according to Soul Society's very limited information on the Espada. Not exactly a low number within the group, but by no means high.

The other thing he focused on was more important.

"Espada? You mean like the top ten Arrancar that followed Aizen. Soul Society assumed that your organization disappeared when Aizen was defeated. I didn't realize that you still operated without a leader..."

Nnoitra scoffed.

"As if a bitch-ass Shinigami could ever be our leader. Ever since Aizen died, we had a new leader, though we've always sorta followed him regardless even when Aizen was in control. But, enough about us, let's talk about _you_..." Nnoitra said, pointing his crescent blade at Byakuya.

"Ever since I got here, it's been nothin' but wusses, wimps, and pussies. No one here has been able to give me even remotely a good fight. But, yous a Captain, ain't ya? That means that you're the cream of the crop here in Soul Society. Maybe you could give me the fight I'm looking for?" Nnoitra inquired, licking his lips and showing off his "6" tattoo.

"Filth..." Byakuya muttered in disdain, drawing his Zanpakutou and getting into a full ready position. "You are clearly an enemy... you have shown your true colors when you cowardly invaded and shed blood within our court. What's important here is not that you can get a fight out of this, but rather that you are crushed with the shortest amount of effort and time available at my disposal... Arrancar," he finished.

Nnoitra smirked.

"'Zat so? Well, don't think it's going to be that easy... Shinigami!" Nnoitra released his heavy reiatsu, and Byakuya's eyes widened as it blanketed the area and Nnoitra swung his Zanpakutou within the narrow office.

The building collapsed in on itself from the powerful blow, before two figures climbed out of the rubble during the aftereffects. Byakuya took up footing on a nearby roof, while Nnoitra watched him from down below on the street.

"You show no restraint, Arrancar... That will be your downfall..."

Nnoitra didn't say anything, instead just opting to to swing his blade around, crashing it into the building that Byakuya was standing on.

* * *

"Kyouraku!" Ukitake cried, as he flash stepped his way inside the Eighth Division, and inside Kyouraku Shunsui's personal quarters. Kyouraku himself was lounged upon the roof of the building, looking solemnly at the destruction that Seireitei was undergoing.

"Ukitake?"

"What are you doing lying around? Why aren't you preparing for battle?" Ukitake asked. Kyouraku sighed.

"Nanao-chan already fulfilled the necessary orders and mobilized the division, even before she want on to the Vice-Captain's meeting. She's really a hard worker, she is, and so organized. There's nothing for me to do in the meantime. Going out and searching for someone to fight on my own doesn't really sit well with me, so I'm just contemplating the phenomenon of war, and how we are dragged into it yet again..." he explained casually.

"Even still, there are Shinigami down there dying, the least you could do is..."

"No need to waste our time chasing down average Arrancar. We've caught ourselves a big fish already, so there's no need to do anything..." Kyouraku explained, seemingly noticing a presence for the first time. Ukitake noticed it a mere seconds after Kyouraku, as an Arrancar entered the area that the two Captains were standing in.

"An Arrancar..." Ukitake said in surprise.

"Not just any Arrancar. Have you felt her reiatsu. It's pretty strong. I'm going to have my work cut out for me on this one..."

"It's a woman..." Ukitake outright sweatdropped. "Are you sure you're going to able to do this?" he asked, his faith in Kyouraku apparently very low. Kyouraku wasn't phased.

"Normally, I don't like the thought of fighting women. But then again, I don't like the thought of fighting at all. But sometimes you have to force yourself to do things that you really don't want to do..."

Kyouraku picked up his two Zanpakutou, as Tier Harribel stared up at the two senior Captains on the roof. Kyouraku flashed down to meet her, a soft smile on his face.

"Well, we have a lovely young lady that has come to meet me! It must be my lucky day!" Kyouraku said, as Harribel regarded him calmly. Ukitake smacked his hand to his forehead, exasperated by Kyouraku's wily antics. It didn't help that Harribel wore quite the provocative outfit to boot.

Harribel neither reacted with anger nor disdain at Kyouraku's greeting. In fact, she didn't react to him to at all. It was almost like he wasn't there to her, and to him it was like he was talking to a brick wall.

"..."

"...Hello?" Kyouraku asked, a little confused by the lack of response.

Not it was Harribel's turn to look at him with disdain.

"_You're _one of the thirteen Captains of Seireitei. Somehow I'm pretty disappointed..." she said, not bothering to hide the condescension that was in her voice.

"But..." she placed her finger on the edge of the hilt of her Zanpakutou, slipping it through the loop and flipping it out of its sheathe. She twirled it around before catching it, the odd Hollow sword looking useless for battle, even though it was deadly in the wielder's hands.

"Regardless, you are a member of the 13 elite Shinigami. I will have to crush you with full force..." she said, as Kyouraku.

"Man, I got one who's just so eager to fight. Unfortunately, I can't just sit around and chat with a lovely lady this time either, no matter how much I would like to..." Kyouraku paused.

"And I just hate getting cut up..."

Harribel didn't give him any time to talk after that. Rather, she charged up yellow reiatsu into the hollow part of his sword, and used Sonido to get underneath her opponent's guard and slam her powered-up Zanpakutou across his face.

Kyouraku grunted and desperately drew both of Zanpakutous at the side, crossing them over each other to block the strong attack from Harribel. He grinned awkwardly.

"And I get the feeling I'm gonna get cut up a lot here..."

Ukitake watched from his vantage point on the roof. The girl was strong, very very strong. Much stronger than he would've ever expected an Arrancar to be.

"Aren't you gonna help him?"

"Of course not! Two-on-one isn't very fair, and Kyouraku seems to be doing just fine on his own..."

"Whatever, I don't really care..." said the strange voice from beside Ukitake.

Ukitake seemed to notice for the first time that he was talking to someone who shouldn't have been there, and he bounced from his seat as he saw two Arrancar, one that looked like an adult man, and another that looked like a preteen girl, sitting right next to him.

"How'd you get here?!" Ukitake asked.

"Well, I'm supposed to be going around killing people and looking for some key, but I don't really like that kind of stuff. I was hoping to just take it easy while I watch one of the others do their thing." Starrk said.

"And it's because of that crap that you got demoted. You keep up that lazy attitude and you'll get kicked out of the Espada altogether!" Lilynette said from behind him, smacking Starrk in the back of the head, making him grunt as he fell flat on his face.

"That might be what I want at this point, but I can't ask for another demotion or anything..." Starrk responded. Lilynette continued to yell at him, while Ukitake stood there watching the scene, completely perplexed.

"You're an Espada?"

"Unfortunately..."

"Then who's leading this attack? Aizen is dead..."

"You don't need to worry about that right now. I would go and help your friend if I were you. I may not want to fight or anything, but all of my comrades do, including her..." he pointed down towards Harribel, who was clashing with Kyouraku.

"She's strong. That Captain-san isn't going to last very long..."

"That's okay, Kyouraku is strong too, but the question is if you're really going to remain idle..." Ukitake said, slightly suspicious. Starrk laid his head into the roof of the building.

"_Fine_. If you really want to fight, then that's the way it's going to be." he said, climbing to his feet and stretching before yawning.

"Lilynette, don't run off and do your own thing. Stay out of range, and if I need you, I will call..." Starrk said completely seriously, facing Ukitake while placing his hand on his Zanpakutou.

"Fine. I got it..." Lilynette said, just as serious as Starrk, backing away from the powerful opponents. Ukitake didn't look pleased, or excited, or even angry at Starrk.

"I need to ask you something. Of all the Arrancar I've met, most of them are petty, rude, sadistic, and cruel. Neither you nor the girl down there seem like any of those things. And yet your group is ransacking Soul Society. Why are you doing this?"

Starrk's expression didn't change.

"I don't believe that's any of your business..." Starrk said, as his "Zanpakutou" was drawn fully out of its sheathe. Ukitake meanwhile was looking cautiously at Lilynette, like he didn't feel he could fight with her around.

"I'm not going to send her away, you know. She can handle herself in a fight..." Starrk said, noting his discomfort.

While that exchange was occurring, Harribel and Kyouraku continued to duel down below. Without ever turning away from the battle, Kyouraku noticed Starrk.

"Hmm, where'd that guy come from? I guess it doesn't matter, but did I hear that girl mention something about the Espada? Those ten Arrancar who were the elite of Aizen's forces?"

"..."

"I take that silence as a yes," Kyouraku said cheekily.

"Hmm, there are ten of you, and two of them have come to see us. You seem powerful, if I'm to be honest, but I can tell that you're not the ones leading their operation. If I had to guess, I'd say that the guy up there is Number Two..." his eyes trailed up for a second as there was a lull in the battle.

"... because I'm going to guess that you're Number Three, you know?" he finished, looking at Harribel. Harribel didn't respond or even say anything to him, instead placing her hand on her very short zipper.

If it was any other time than an invaded Soul Society, the slightly perverted Captain would get a little excited at what Harribel was about to do, but as is, his expression didn't change in the slightest.

She completely unzipped her already short top, revealing her mask fragments, which covered the bottom half of her face, her neck, and the top part of her breasts. On the bottom half of her right breast, a small "5" was tattooed there.

That seemed to surprise Kyouraku somewhat.

"Number Five, huh? That's not what I was expecting, really. With your skills, I thought you would at least be a little higher ranked than that, but I was wrong. I guess it goes to show that your army isn't one to be messed with..." he commented.

"Really? This is hardly my full power right now. If I'm fighting with all my strength, you will know..." Harribel commented.

* * *

"Kurotsuchi-taichou!"

A researcher of the Twelfth Division cried for his Captain, as a purple ink-like substance splashed onto him. The researcher cried out in alarm as a clone of him grew from where the substance splattered against him.

"AH! What is this?!" he screamed. He wasn't the only one who was afraid of the inky material. All of the living, remaining researchers in the room balked as they were hit by the substance, clones of them popping out every which way.

At a closer glance, they could tell differences between each other. The carbon clones of all the researchers had no pupils, along with bizarre symbols around their eyes.

"Be careful! We don't know what they're capable of yet!" Akon shouted above the din, staring across at three clones of his own. Thankfully, Zanpakutou weren't allowed in the lab, but not even Kurotsuchi Mayuri could take away their Kidou. Then again, no one really knew if the clones could copy their abilities yet.

Akon grit his teeth in frustration, looking to where the cause of all their problems was. The Arrancar that had invaded was sitting atop of the main monitor in the room, and Akon could tell he was a lot different than before... and a lot more disgusting too.

Akon had never personally seen an Arrancar's release, and after this display he hoped to never see one again. And that was something coming from a researcher like him; he was supposed to be used to things that made lesser people squeamish.

He had released his Zanpakutou in an _interesting_ way, but his "release" was over now, and he was fully in his Resurrección. His Arrancar robe had changed. The top half disappeared to become a hard lavender material that seemed to be armour, while the bottom half of his robes became stained with a strange purple material.

His mask fragments had changed from the "glasses" he wore to be a band across his forehead, which curled under his left eye while connecting to shell-like plates over his ears.

Four "wings" were jutting from his back, each of them dripping a repulsive red tendril. Similar purple tendrils were found on Szayel's fingertips, forearms, and on the ends of his hair.

He had sprayed the black liquid from his back, and seemed to be able to manipulate it at will.

"You like that? Ever since I've undergone training, I've been able to manipulate my excretions at will! Let's see how you enjoy fighting yourselves while I sit back and watch!" he laughed.

Akon cringed as a clone of himself fired a blast of Kidou, destroying a monitor behind him as Akon dodged. The clone reached into his robe, pulling out a number of scalpels. All around him, clones of other researchers were doing the same.

"_Shit, I forgot! We're not completely unarmed around here in the first place!"_ Akon thought, as he dodged a thrown scalpel. Another unlucky researcher got pinned to the wall by about a dozen scalpels.

"3rd Seat Akon! What do we do!? We can't fight him!" the researcher who had been pinned to the wall exclaimed. Szayel watched boredly as he struggled.

"At least give a little more energy when you resist... it's a little boring killing someone when they don't even scream in agony..." Szayel commented, still not getting up from his perch.

"Rin, get to the door! Forget the punishment later; I will take full responsibly! Just get Kurotsuchi-taichou out of his specimen lab and alert him to the situation! Hurry!" Akon shouted at Rin, who was in the far corner of the room. He was the only one of the researchers who had not been cloned yet.

"Uh, I don't think I can do that at the moment, sempai!" he said, cowering.

"Rin... you little bastard..." another, well-built researcher pointed out.

"Now's not the time for that, Rin! Get over there and alert Kurotsuchi-taichou! That's an order!" Akon said, this time much more forcefully. That seemed to kick Rin into shape.

"Uh... yes, sir!" Rin shouted, forcing himself to move from his hiding spot. Szayel watched him with a slight amount of interest, like he was pondering something.

"_Hmm, the Captain of this division seems to be in the vicinity, though if he joins the fight now things could get a little difficult. Should I allow him to alert his Captain, or take care of all of them first?" _Szayel pondered.

Szayel seemed to decide on something, and shot out one of his wings that heading straight towards Rin. Rin saw it coming, and froze in his tracks, looking at the oncoming attack like a deer in headlights.

Another researcher got in front of Rin, using his body and a tiny scalpel to try and keep the tendril from attacking Rin. However, Szayel didn't wrap the researcher in his wings, but instead just lightly tapped him before pulling it back.

He hissed in annoyance as he missed his intended target, but one of the red tendrils on his wings began to swell. He touched it lightly, and the tendril spit out a small doll, similar in appearance to the researcher he just touched.

Szayel took the doll in his hand and placed it in his back pocket for the time being. He threw out his arms in a wide, flamboyant display, allowing all four of his wings to shoot forward.

More researchers put themselves between Rin and Szayel, even as the tendrils touched them, and Szayel drew back to create more and more dolls that he could control. Finally, only Akon and Rin were the only ones in the room not under Szayel's control.

Before long, Szayel had pockets filled with voodoo dolls, but he wasn't concerned about that. He shot out his wings one last time...

Rin was just about to make it to the other part of the lab, but then his entire world went dark.

* * *

"Are you going, Mayuri-sama?" Kurotsuchi Nemu asked. Mayuri was hunched over something, reaching into a crawlspace while seemingly pulling something out of nowhere.

"Of course! Arrancar are invading Soul Society! For once in my life, specimens are actually coming to me rather than me going to them! It is the perfect opportunity to pick up some intriguing specimens for my lab!" he said, clutching his Zanpakutou in his hands.

Mayuri looked over to his right, where the door led to his specimen lab. Hopefully he would be able to stock up on something new. He turned back to the main monitor, the central database of the entire Institution.

"Nemu, you're going to come with me in case I need a decoy. I'll leave Akon in charge of the entire facility..." he ordered, attaching his Zanpakutou in the very_ odd_ place that he kept it.

"Yes, Mayuri-sama..."

Before either of them could move one step, the door to Mayuri's quarters burst open. Mayuri sneered at the blatant disrespect that one of his underlings was showing, but he eerily and calmly watched as Rin stepped into the room.

"Kurotsuchi-sama, we are under attack..." Rin said, with a surprisingly emotionless and Hollow voice. Mayuri pondered what he should do, but surprisingly he didn't blow up at the young Shinigami.

"I see... And why did you interrupt me over such a minor detail?" Mayuri asked him. Rin said nothing in response, keeping his same blank expression and mannerisms.

Out of nowhere, Rin pulled a scalpel out of his back pocket, preparing to strike Mayuri with it. However, Mayuri had seen this coming for a long time, and before Rin could do anything he had stabbed him straight in the stomach with his sealed Zanpakutou.

"Seriously? Did they think they could fool me with this?" Mayuri commented out-loud, as the clone burst into black liquid. Mayuri didn't look surprised; he could spot the differences from a mile away. There was that symbol around his eyes, the lack of pupils, and the overall emotionless demeanor.

He threw the door open a little wider with a great amount of force, walking through two more unoccupied labs before picking up on a few sounds. There was definitely a battle going on, though no one had bothered to alert him. Didn't they know they were supposed to tell him if their division is under attack? Never mind the "Enter and I'll Kill You!" sign that was always posted above his own personal lab.

He hissed as he threw open the door to the lab where Szayel had taken up residence. Strewn across the floor were the dead bodies of many of his underlings, including the real Rin and Akon.

The only living thing in the room was the Arrancar sitting in the center, wings folded as he waited patiently. Neither Mayuri nor Nemu paid any attention to the bodies, or how horrifically killed they were. Some of them were bleeding in peculiar places, like they had their organs ruptured without any physical trauma.

Szayel had one last scientist crushed in his wings, before he let him go, flopping to the ground uselessly. He eyed the new arrival, taking special note of the haori that adorned him.

Mayuri stared him down back, and a sinister smile spread across his face. Szayel actually had a light frown on his face, as Mayuri fondled his Zanpakutou.

"Arrancar..." he hissed.

"A Captain... The Twelfth Division's Captain, huh? I've been waiting to flush you out, but I always figured it wouldn't be that easy."

"Really? I've been looking to head out for a while now, and see if I can find any interesting specimens. And I must say, you look particularly interesting. I don't think I've ever seen anyone who was able to kill in such a manner. It makes me truly wonder how you did it..." Mayuri commented, to Szayel's disinterest. One of his wings was fidgeting.

"Too bad you won't be able to take me as a specimen. It's a shame, I myself would like to get a Shinigami Captain in my research lab, but I'm afraid I'm under strict orders to kill whoever I encounter. You're going to die here, Kurotsuchi Mayuri!" Szayel shouted.

"You have a rather bland personality, don't you? Though it seems that you are the scientific equivalent of the Arrancar, considering you came here first and seem to have an interest in research. Though, you have destroyed much valuable equipment within my division, so I'm afraid I can't let that slide. I'll be taking you in now, with the method that requires the least amount of effort..." Mayuri said, drawing his Zanpakutou.

"Rip..."

"Ashisogi Jizou!"

Szayel's eyes narrowed as the Captain released his Shikai, with turned into a bizarre, golden trident with a baby-like face near its bottom. At first glance, Szayel couldn't figure out what it did. But the information he had on Mayuri's Shikai told him that Ashisogi Jizou's Shikai was a type of paralysis.

Szayel sent out his wings towards the Captain, but withdrew when Mayuri sliced his Zanpakutou forward. It wouldn't do to get it paralyzed. He predicted Mayuri's straight pattern, before moving his wing to the side to try and get Mayuri from a different angle.

Mayuri looked at the oncoming wing, jumping back a little bit as he halted his attack. He pulled on his mechanical ear, drawing the blade out from its socket and twirling it at the oncoming wing. It sliced off one of the tendrils allowing a purple liquid to spurt forth from the severed tendril.

"Shit!" Mayuri said, as the liquid actually shot from the severed tendril and splattered all over the place in an unexpected attack. He used Shunpo to get around all over the globs of liquid, but he was kept distracted by that one thing.

While Mayuri was busy dodging, Szayel appeared directly behind him. However, before he could attack Mayuri, Nemu got between the two. While he managed to touch both of them with one of his wings, Mayuri actually finished dodging and got ready to counterattack, slashing at Szayel's shoulder just as the dolls of both of them were being formed.

Blood gushed from Szayel's wound as he cursed and withdrew. The tendril on his wings swelled and burst, and with his good arm he held both the Mayuri and Nemu dolls in his hand. The paralysis had already taken effect in his left shoulder, meaning that it was disabled for at least the rest of the fight.

Mayuri stared at him blankly, head tilting as he saw the dolls. He hadn't seen any of his particularly abilities yet, so he was fascinated by what the Arrancar could do.

The Novena Espada wasted no words, instead using one of his fingers to flick the doll of Mayuri lightly. Mayuri felt the light bit of force across his forehead, putting a finger to where it was irritated. He looked back at Szayel, who was now grinning despite his injury.

"Don't tell me..." Mayuri said, as Szayel used his free arm to pry open the tops on both dolls. Inside, he could see their organs, colored and labelled for him to pick up.

He plucked out a red ball from Mayuri's doll, holding it in his fingers.

"Don't come any closer, now. Take one step away from that spot, and I'll crush both your hearts where you stand. There's something I need to look for around here, and I can't have you mess that up..." Szayel threatened. On the outside, Mayuri looked submissive and subservient, but on the inside he was scheming, looking for a way out of this, or how he could use Szayel's mercy to his advantage.

"I'm going to go in your specimen lab!" Szayel announced. He looked at Nemu very quickly, but on the inside he was seething. How dare an Arrancar try to set foot into his specimen lab.

With his fingers still on Mayuri's "heart", he walked out the research lab, where he couldn't see them. Maybe he was trying to bluff, but whatever the case, Mayuri called it.

"Nemu, get me Item #4544 from the Biology Lab Section E5 and bring them here immediately. Also, remove all vials of antidode stored within the facility." Mayuri ordered.

"Yes, Mayuri-sama. And you?"

"Once you have returned with the dummy organs, I will head to the specimen lab and resume my fight there. I will begin compiling my list of information on the Arrancar immediately..." he said, a grin entering his face.

* * *

"Magnificent!" Szayel exclaimed, as he entered Mayuri's specimen lab, by far the most spacious and most packed room within the entire facility. And it was a scientist's dream come true. The walls were packed to the brim with creature's preserved in formaldehyde, and there were even some Shinigami, human, and Quincy corpses hung upon the walls. Some of them were preserved, and some of them were fresh.

Things weren't going his way in that battle, but now he could turn it around completely. Not to mention, this was the most likely place where he could find the key.

He stood at the center, marveling at the specimens and actually zoning out for a while there.

"Magnificent, isn't it? I'll have you know that you'll be a part of it soon enough..." Mayuri's voice sounded from behind Szayel, and he saw the Captain hobble into the room. Nemu was not with him.

"Oh, back so soon? I thought I told you to stay put, lest in case I do this..." Szayel said.

He still had the doll in his reach, and without wasting any words, he plucked the heart from the Mayuri doll and crushed it right before his very eyes. Nothing happened.

Szayel grunted in surprise.

"What?"

He took another, less fatal organ from the doll and crushed it too. Again, Mayuri was unaffected by the entire thing, and Szayel was getting frustrated. He tossed the doll down to the ground, stomping on the thing, breaking replica organs that should've been affecting the real thing.

"Why?! Why won't you die?!" Szayel said.

"Seriously? You give me a few moments alone in my own facility, and I can figure out your weaknesses and how to exploit them. All I did was replace my real organs with dummies..."

"Dummies!? You actually have dummy organs in stock here?!" Szayel asked incredulously.

"Are you touched in the head? Of course I have dummy organs in stock!" Mayuri replied. Szayel grit his teeth in anger, before he cast the doll to the side, trying to figure out a new way to attack.

He opened the slit on his back where the black cloning liquid poured from, rushing Mayuri with Sonido. Mayuri slashed with his Zanpakutou, but Szayel hopped into mid-air, blocking the blade with his sandal.

"Ha! Ten years ago I would never dream of doing this! But, Naruto is a slavedriver with his training, and he always knew that my direct combat abilities were lacking!"

"Damn you!" Mayuri shouted. Using his free hand, he took his ear scythe and threw it at Szayel, ripping off one of his wings and forcing him back. The tendril crashed to the ground, and Szayel used his good hand to clutch the wound.

"Son of a bitch..." he muttered to himself. He could've probably ended this fight with just his first release, but he wanted to finish this with the least amount of time and effort possible.

"You're starting to annoy me, Kurotsuchi Mayuri. I don't like dealing with annoying opponents, especially when they claim to be just as brilliant as myself!" Szayel exclaimed, backing into the middle of the room.

He lifted his one good arm, charging up his reiatsu.

"Resurrección Fornicarás: Segunda Etapa..." he muttered, as pink reiatsu exploded around the specimen room. Mayuri's eyes widened; he knew about the Arrancar Resurrección.

He _didn't _know that there was another stage to it.

"Fascinating... Arrancars have a second release. Who knows the type of abilities that they could have!" he said, intrigued by the possibilities. Szayel was emerging from his cloud of reiatsu, meanwhile.

When he got out, he was different, even by his first release's standards. While his mask fragments remained the same, his eyes were golden-yellow, pupils rounded. His hair was slightly longer, reaching down to his chest. When he moved, the purple tendrils on the ends of the strands of hair whipped around.

His purple "fingernails" got even longer and his sleeves disappeared completely, dozens of purple tendrils dripping off his skin itself. His four wings split into sixteen, red tendrils shifting into the back of them as the whipped around behind Szayel, almost like a wheel or a moving halo.

The bottom half of his robe from his first release had vanished completely, turning into an armored worm-like tail. His Hollow hole became visible for the first time, being where his crotch once was.

And Mayuri was grinning like a madman.

"Interesting. This is your Segunda Etapa, as you call it..." he commented, taking his blade out. Szayel only grinned, a horribly remarkable sinister grin that put even Mayuri's to shame.

"You won't find it interesting for long..." Szayel said. Instead of the slightly feminine voice that Szayel always had, it was bit more guttural, which fit his bizarre second release.

Black liquid dribbled out from both his mouth and back, as all the tendrils along his body liquified. Even from his Hollow hole and parts of his tail black excretions of liquid emerged He spread his arms out and grinned through a mouthful of liquid.

The black liquid formed into many different globules, before Szayel brought his arms together. Like they had a life of their own, the black globes of liquids flew in every which direction, splattering all over containers of dead animals and specimens within the lab.

Mayuri was outraged by this.

"What? What do you think you're doing?!" he cried at Szayel, after watching him deface his life's work. Maybe he shouldn't have let him go to the specimen lab in the first place.

There were not many things that could catch Kurotsuchi Mayuri off guard. He was a scientist by nature; he was used to disgusting and horrible things, and even an opponent far beyond his strength wasn't something he lost his shit to.

With that said, seeing his dead specimens suddenly come back to life and head for one was one of the few things that did.

"W-What is this?" he exclaimed, watching the animals unfasten the lids off their jars and crawl onto the floor. Even the Shinigami on the wall had used their Zanpakutou to cut their bondings and flop onto the floor.

Mayuri looked around himself, debating on whether or not he should use his Zanpakutou on his precious specimens. They were rapidly gaining on him. Snakes and other reptiles, birds, Hollows, Shinigami, and even creatures that any normal person couldn't even describe were edging in on him at quite the fast rate.

And the thing they had in common: they all had the same markings around their eyes.

"Yes, you have fallen victim to my possession! If I touch anything, living or dead, with my special black liquid, they instantly become under my control! I can even bring them back to life and force them to do my bidding. How does it feel to be held down by the very own creatures you've researched and collected over the years! Does it hurt?!"

"You... how dare you!" Mayuri managed to get out, as he was bitten by several of his animals. One of the Quincy was firing up his bow.

"Yes! Yes! Writhe in pain and suffering!" Szayel quacked maniacally, spreading out more liquid around the specimen jars.

"I knew I could work this room to my advantage! If I had stayed in the other one any longer, you would've find a way to defeat me, and I can't have that!"

Mayuri was running out of options. He hadn't been able to become fully prepared for this fight, despite his dummy organs. He just didn't have the time to research everything about Szayel.

He was still in his Shikai, but he was getting ganged up on by his own specimens. His Zanpakutou didn't have an attack that covered a wide amount of distance.

His mind worked towards one option, but this was a precious place to him. He couldn't use a destructive force like his Bankai here, especially with specimens that have been untouched.

But it looked like he didn't have any options.

"Damn you to hell..." he grimaced, so lowly that Szayel couldn't even hear it. He sliced one of his specimens in half with his Zanpakutou, feeling a little bit of a sting at the fact that he just destroyed one of his own possessions.

"Bankai..."

* * *

"Well, looks like Szayel is going wild over there. Didn't really expect that from him..." Naruto muttered, as he made his way through the streets of Seireitei. He was en route to the First Division's barracks, but before he went there, he noticed something pretty interesting in the sky.

There was Baraggan, walking along in the sky with his six Fracción behind him, two of which were carrying his throne for him. He always like to pretend he was still a king, but that wasn't why Naruto was so interested in him. Baraggan kept on stealing glances at Naruto as he passed by, looking in his direction every few seconds. Baraggan seemed to be heading to the Eleventh Division for the time being. Maybe it had something to do with the strategy. His abilities would be perfect for the Eleventh Division, with physical combat against him a big no-no.

"So, he's up to something, huh?" Naruto muttered to himself. He would follow Baraggan for the time being. Out of all the Espada, Baraggan was the least loyal to Naruto, and Naruto knew why to. They were very similar; they had similar pasts, similar lives of ruling. And their history had crossed on more than one occasion. Not to mention, Baraggan was an ancient Hollow with a wealth of experience, who thought he was the one who should be ruling.

Yamamoto could wait right now. Naruto needed to see if the old Hollow was going to be a thorn in his side one last time...

* * *

Okay, done. It's longer, but this probably isn't going to be the longest chapter. There will probably be longer chapters as time goes on, but for now, it's good. I just wanted to ease everyone into the longer chapters.

With that said, I'll see you next time. Also, a shoutout to Mithos Yggdrassil, who helped me clean up my Spanish, which I'll get around to changing, soon... eventually.

**Current Espada**

1st: Naruto Uzumaki

2nd: Ulquiorra Cifer

3rd: Coyote Starrk

4th: Baraggan Louisenbairn

5th: Tier Harribel

6th: Nnoitra Gilga

7th: Grimmjow Jeagerjaquez

8th: Zommari Rureaux

9th: Szayel Aporro Granz

10th: Yammy Llargo

**Konoha Association**

Namikaze Minato: 5th Division Captain

Uzumaki Kushina: 3rd Division Captain

Jiraiya: 9th Division Captain

Hatake Kakashi: 5th Division Vice-Captain (deceased)

Rin: 3rd Division Vice-Captain (Captain level)

Tsunade: 4th Division Vice-Captain (Captain level)

Sarutobi Hiruzen: Visored

Hyuuga Hinata: 13th Division Vice-Captain (above Vice-Captain level)

Nara Shikamaru: 8th Division 3rd Seat (above Vice-Captain level)

Inuzuka Kiba: 7th Division 4th Seat (Vice-Captain level)

Hyuuga Neji: 6th Division 3rd Seat (above Vice-Captain level)

Yamanaka Ino: 10th Division 3rd Seat (Vice-Captain level)

**Translations and Other Features**

Fornicarás: You will fornicate (Closest meaning)

Ashisogi Jizou: Leg Cutter Jizou

Resurrección Fornicarás: Segunda Etapa: Resurrection You Will Fornicate: Second Stage

Goodbye,

_**Alban55**_


	52. Los Dos Reyes

Okay, last chapter seemed to be well-received, so that's good. However, some people have pitched to me the idea of a Third Release for Naruto. I'll tell you whether if I'm going to implement that, and the answer is no. For three key reasons.

1. It would be completely overkill.

2. It would be completely out of the blue. A Third Release would be an "Ass Pull", so to speak.

3. Most importantly, it hasn't been planned. I am already done with the plan for this story. Sorry, but I won't be accepting any ideas with regards to the story unless it's a solution to a bad plot point on something that multiple people have pointed out.

With all that said, let's get rolling.

* * *

Chapter 52: Los Dos Reyes

"Konjiki Ashisogi Jizou!"

As Mayuri's giant Bankai grew within his own specimen lab, the walls began to crumble in on themselves. Specimens that were in jars were crushed by the massive weight of the Bankai as it continued to grow. Rubble fell down on shelves and shelves of valuable specimens, crushing them and eliminating precious data from Mayuri's grasp.

In a way, Mayuri's life work was being destroyed... by him.

Even the foundation of the building was crumbling, which all but ensured that everything here would be destroyed in the aftermath of the events.

Shinigami around the Seireitei, while still immersed in their own battles, paused to look as Mayuri's gigantic Bankai rose above the buildings, but they also noticed the specimen lab had been completely destroyed. All the research the Captain had ever undertaken was now essentially worthless.

By extension, the source of much of their technology had been destroyed. Even if they ended the attack right here and now, it would take a long time to recover from such a blow to their important supplies. How would they hunt Hollows without the Twelfth Division's technology?

"K-Kurotsuchi-taichou!" a member of the Twelfth Division who was out on the front lines stuttered, recognizing his Captain's Bankai immediately. Another member of the same division ran up to him.

"That's Kurotsuchi-taichou's Bankai! This situation can't be THAT serious, can it? To have the Captains resort to using Bankai..." he commented. It was the first time either of them had seen Konjiki Ashisogi Jizou in an actual combat scenario.

While the two Shinigami stared in awe of the Bankai, within the lab itself Szayel was unimpressed. He already knew all about Konjiki Ashisogi Jizou from the reports on the Captains, though he had to admit he was a little excited that he got to see a Bankai up close.

A giant golden mixture between a human baby and a caterpillar that wore a red robe and a golden halo. It matched the pictures within the report, and Szayel also knew about its special power.

"H-How dare you!" Mayuri said, a little late on the uptake. Szayel slithered over to where the Captain was standing, having activated his Bankai out of desperation. In the ensuing chaos, he had managed to get all of the possessed specimens off of him, but he had suffered several gashes and bite marks in the process.

"H-How dare you treat my specimen lab in such a manner! I've lost all interest in collecting you! That's it! Don't think that you're going to leave here alive, you lowly Arrancar!" Mayuri shouted. Szayel touched one of the whirling tendrils on his back. The gas that Konjiki Ashisogi Jizou expelled was filled with bacteria. He knew how to counter it already with a specially made antidote that he had prepared for the battle. All he had left to do was attack, as well as make it seem that he had no clue about that Bankai's abilities.

"Oh, please. It's not like it truly matters. A sub-par scientist and Captain like you could never truly match up to a perfect being such as myself. And yet, I don't believe I have truly shown you what I am capable of... Kurotsuchi Mayuri."

Mayuri grit his teeth in anger, though the Captain himself wasn't what Szayel was concerned about. Rather, the gigantic Bankai caterpillar baby... thing that was fidgeting in front of him was Szayel's real concern.

He didn't think Bankais were quite that... odd, for lack of a better word. Granted, coming from him that sounded rather wrong, but it still piqued his interest.

For starters, he knew that most Bankais weren't living creatures, but this one was. That meant that he could work his _magic_ on it, so to speak. He was at a heavy advantage.

"And you call yourself a scientist! How dare you!" Mayuri shouted. "Even if we are on opposite sides, I never would've imagined that a fellow scientist would be so apathetic to valuable research! Even if your ridiculous attack succeeded, there would have been much to gain in this research lab..."

"...And now, there's nothing!" Mayuri said fatally.

Szayel looked bored.

"Like I said, it doesn't even matter. Your specimens aren't worth anything to me... Nothing in Soul Society is worth anything to me..."

Neither combatant said anything anymore. Szayel was too bored, and Mayuri was far too incensed to even think about more conversation with the disgusting Arrancar in front of him.

The giant Bankai... _baby_ opened its mouth. There was Szayel's cue. The tendrils on his back flared out, and they covered Szayel's entire body, wrapping around him in a defensive sphere.

"That won't help you now!" Mayuri exclaimed, as Konjiki Ashisogi Jizou expelled its deadly, purple toxin. Szayel closed his eyes, allowing the abilities of his second release to work their charm. His worm-like tail retracted into his body, and all that remained was a dial of red tendrils in the middle of the room.

The tendrils swelled in size as the gas washed over Szayel, but that was all according to his plan. In reality, inside the sphere, the ends of the tendrils ejected little needles that injected a type of specialized antidote inside Szayel's systems, effectively neutralizing all of the poison.

Inside the sphere of fleshy tendrils, Szayel was thinking of his next move. This would effectively end it, since it was all he had prepared. If this failed, he would have to wing it from that point on. No problem really, since his abilities were likely beyond Kurotsuchi Mayuri's anyway, but it never hurt to be on the safe side.

"_There's only one thing to do now..._"

His golden eyes peered out through an opening in the defense; Mayuri was studying him closely. His second release enhanced his first release's powers to an unheard of level, and with a Bankai that was a living creature, he could do more than just possess it only when eaten.

Though, with something that big, he would have to invade it and fuse with its central nervous system.

He had his eye on Mayuri himself too, making sure that he didn't move. It was clear that his Bankai was something that he ordered from afar, meaning he didn't have a Zanpakutou to engage in direct combat like his Shikai. If he tried to engage Szayel unarmed, he would be destroyed.

The fleshy tendrils retracted, coming to rest back upon his wings, but Szayel was nowhere near finished. The segments of his worm-like abdomen lengthened, allowing him to slither across the ground and in general gave him access to a more streamlined form.

The giant Bankai in front of him was a sitting duck, as it was just standing there, waiting for its master's next orders. Mayuri had seen that his poison had been neutralized, so he moved on to the next step.

"Attack! Konjiki Ashisogi Jizou!"

The Bankai roared and retracted the many blades on its underbelly, slithering towards where Szayel was moving.

"Too late!" Szayel shouted back. The Novena Espada flipped into mid-air, curling up into a ball. Large spines, similar to Konjiki Ashisogi Jizou's emerged from every part of his body, and he whirled through the air towards his adversary.

He was much, much faster than Mayuri's Bankai, and as such he was able to penetrate into the Bankai's side without much trouble. Konjiki Ashisogi Jizou roared in pain, as one of the spines penetrate the skin on its side.

Despite his anger, Mayuri watched... fascinated by this turn of events. One of Szayel's spines ripped a hole in the Bankai's flesh, and Szayel's more streamlined form allowed him to slither in underneath the Bankai's tissue, effectively entering its body.

Once Szayel was fully inside, a sticky green fluid leaked from the wound, cauterizing and gluing the injury back shut once again as Szayel entered Konjiki Ashisogi Jizou's bloodstream.

"What?!" a perplexed Mayuri state.

Mayuri, for everything he did right, found himself at a loss. Without all his inventions and preparations, he didn't know how to proceed or how to halt this menace in his tracks.

For all his genius, Kurotsuchi Mayuri was not good with hands-on situations, and was not good at thinking on his feet.

He only had one more trick up his sleeve, but if the situation didn't call for it...

Mayuri still couldn't keep the look of curiosity off his face as a strange symbol appeared across Konjiki Ashisogi Jizou's eyes. When that occurred, the Bankai stopped in place, it's blades retracted back into its body, and it stopped breathing poison.

"The main power in my Segunda Etapa is essentially "upgrading" abilities that I already had before. One of those such abilities was my ability to possess living things. Whereas before I could only possess a lifeform in the event that I was eaten, now I have the ability to invade a life form's body and fuse with its central nervous system, effectively allowing me to control the body for myself..." Szayel said. His voice reverberated all throughout the area, and no one could really tell where it was coming from.

Mayuri almost grinned. That meant that the battle was going exactly in his favor. He could still use his ace in the hole.

Szayel turned his own Bankai against him, using its blades to try and impale the Captain right where he stood. Mayuri didn't even do anything, but rather he just stood there and watched as his own Bankai exploded.

Mayuri grinned as his Shikai returned to him; maybe that was enough to do in the Arrancar. However, when he saw a shadow inside the plume of smoke, his grin faltered. Before he could even react, a large tendril shot out of the smoke and wrapped around Mayuri, constricting him in place.

"Urrk..."

He lurched through the air, as the clearly still-alive Szayel floated back towards the ground, still holding Mayuri in one of his tendrils. The Captain's arm holding his Zanpakutou was held stiff at his side. He was out of tricks.

Szayel began to cackle.

"Well, Kurotsuchi Mayuri, did you think that just because you disabled your Bankai that I'm defenseless? Or did you think that I too would die in that blast?! You make me laugh!"

He paused for a moment, bringing his tendril back to look Mayuri in the eye. Vaguely, he noticed that one of his "ears" were gone.

"You went on and on about me being a true scientist, but if I had to pick straight up, I would rather be a non-scientist who knows how to at least survive, than a scientist who is absolutely defenseless without his trinkets!"

"Y-You... are no scientist..." Mayuri managed to grunt out, to the bored looking Szayel. With a great deal of effort, he managed to lift his Zanpakutou arm...

Szayel looked apathetic.

"I wouldn't try anything if I were you. I could crush your spine right now in your condition, and whatever you try is pointless anyway..." Szayel commented.

A chain and a blade fell from Mayuri's sleeve, and using his reiatsu, it locked around his Shikai. It was one of those scythes that was normally stored in one of his "ears".

With all his effort, his tossed his Shikai out. It was a pathetic effort, but miraculously it got the job done. Mayuri's Shikai flew to the side, before Mayuri gripped the chain and guided it all the way back around...

Szayel looked at the flying blade with surprise, turning frantically to get a glimpse at it, but with his grip so firm on Mayuri, he didn't have enough time to react any further.

The blade closed in on him...

And when it reached its mark, it had impaled Szayel from directly behind him...

The paralysis Shikai had stabbed him right through the chest, and he cried out in agony when it occurred. He could already sense the mobility leaving from his limbs, and before the paralysis could take full effect, he raised his right arm and yanked the blade out none too gently.

He threw it at Mayuri as a fountain of blood gushed from his torso, coating his tendrils and tail. The Shikai also stabbed Mayuri, though it wasn't nearly as deep as Szayel's wound.

However, the blade had punctured the Soul Sleep, the source of all spiritual power.

"Screw you!"

Before mobility left Szayel's limbs completely, he exerted his full strength on Mayuri, squeezing the Captain tighter and tighter. He grinned sadistically as Mayuri was crushed, and he could already feel the pressure building up...

_Snap!_

There came a loud snapping noise as Szayel exerted all the force he could muster, and Mayuri's spinal chord snapped from the extreme pressure Szayel had been applying. With the last of his mobility, the tendril holding Mayuri threw him like a ragdoll away from the scene.

He flopped onto the ground twenty feet away, completely useless. His own Shikai fell from his body, adding even more paralysis to him. He was now completely immobile.

He had already realized just what had happened to him with a broken spine and a lack of reiryoku...

"D-Damn you. Y-You've crippled me f-for l-life... N-Normally, h-healing an i-injury like t-this would be n-no... it w-would be n-nothing. But, you've severed my S-Soul S-Sleep. Without r-reiatsu, I c-can't hope to h-heal from an i-injury like this. I'm... p-permanently p-paralyzed..." the pitiful Mayuri croaked.

Szayel, meanwhile, was clutching his wound. He too was immobile, but he was bleeding far too much.

"Fuck you! If it wasn't for _your_ damn paralysis, healing _this_ wound would be easy!"

To prove a point, Szayel tried to move one of his tendrils, but it wouldn't budge in the slightest. He wasn't able to get to his healing serum, which could likely heal his paralysis instantly.

His tendril continued to hang there limply, as more and more blood gushed out from Szayel's wound. At this rate...

"I can't die here! No way! I was the head scientist in the Reino Animal and in Las Noches. I was going to expand even further, into the Soul Society! I'm the perfect scientist _and_ the perfect being! There's no way I can lose here!" he said.

Despite his injuries, Mayuri scoffed.

"Naruto has acknowledged me as the perfect being! That's why he gave me the rank of Novena Espada, and the rank of head scientist! He'll save me! The Arrancar army cannot survive without me! You'll see!"

Szayel was starting to get hysterical.

"You're pitiful..." Mayuri said, as he struggled to turn his head away from the dying Arrancar. He was aloof on the outside, but in all seriousness, he wished in was in the position of the Arrancar before him. Death seemed like a suitable alternative to being crippled for the rest of his life.

"Damn it! Damn it!"

The impaling wound was too serious, and Szayel was losing too much blood. He was beginning to feel dizzy, and he could no longer remain standing as he collapsed onto the ground and bled out further.

"Waste of time..." Mayuri said, though in reality it was a Pyrrhic victory for him as well. To the Gotei 13, he was as good as dead, and he would remain a shell of his former self for here on afterward.

"W-What n-now..." Szayel got out, before his eyes clouded over...

.

.

...At this point, the Novena Espada became the first of the ten strongest Arrancars in die in the Soul Society invasion...

* * *

Naruto's eyes snapped open as a familiar reiatsu disappeared.

"Szayel is dead!" he told himself simply, as he felt the Novena Espada's reiatsu disappear completely. The other Espada would be sure to notice it as well.

"Did he at least take out his opponent?" Naruto asked himself. He had felt the two reiatsu signatures go out, but at this point he could feel neither one of them.

That left nine Espada left to fulfill the duty he had created. Szayel was one of the weaker Espada, but he had hoped that he could at least avoid any Espada casualties before the main event with the Zero Division.

"_That, and there's one other Espada that I may have to neutralize..._" Naruto thought to himself, feeling Baraggan's spiritual pressure. He was beginning to engage in battle.

* * *

"What!? The Twelfth Division is in shambles!" Abarai Renji cried out, voicing the concerns of all the other Vice-Captains as well.

In the ten years since the Aizen incident, his abilities had drastically changed, though his appearance had changed strikingly little per Shinigami standards, with the exception of the spread of tattoos along his body.

"Yes, that's why Kurotsuchi-fukutaichou isn't here." Hinamori stated. With Kakashi's death ten years ago, she had been promoted to the Vice-Captain spot for the Fifth Division

"And Sasakibe-fukutaichou is absent because he is assigned to protect the Captain-Commander. Kusajishi-fukutaichou never comes to these meetings anyway. Shit, how is this a mandatory meeting of the Vice-Captains if there are only seven of the thirteen attending!" Renji cried.

"It can't be helped. Rin-fukutaichou, Tsunade-fukutaichou, and Hyuuga-fukutaichou are all currently in Hueco Mundo. We are just going to have to cover for them and give out orders to their divisions while they are absent..." Rangiku piped up, while she lounged on the other side of the room.

"These Arrancar are strong, and they literally came out of nowhere with this attack. We will have to make up for this somehow..." Hisagi commented, to which no one responded.

"Should we..."

Before Renji could finish that sentence, a blanket of reiatsu washed over the seven Vice-Captains in the room. With some of them, their hands flew to their Zanpakutous instinctively, as beads of sweat formed on all of their faces.

"What's with this reiatsu? Is it an Arrancar? Where is it coming from?" Renji said out loud, voicing everyone's concerns again. Then, there was a flash of movement, and a millisecond later, a tall, dark-skinned Arrancar was standing in the doorway, blocking the exit.

"An Arrancar!" Hinamori shouted as she hopped to her feet.

"What do you want!? Who are you?!" Renji demanded, as he drew his Zanpakutou. The black Arrancar closed his eyes.

"I am Zommari Rureaux, the Octava Espada. I am searching for division Captains, but looking at you, it appears that I have stumbled across some sort of meeting of the Vice-Captains. So I suppose I shall have to settle for you..." he said.

Hinamori backed away out of fear, though the others held their ground. Most of them had their Zanpakutous drawn by now.

"An Espada? Does that mean that Aizen is behind this attack? I thought he was dead!" Renji asked.

"No, you are correct in assuming that Aizen is dead. Our attack is led by the glorious Naruto-sama, and it is his wish that I destroy every Shinigami I come across..." Zommari replied.

"I knew it! They're trying to kill us all! What do we do, Abarai-fukutaichou!" Hisagi piped up. Renji looked at the Arrancar, who never let his expression change even in the face of such numbers.

"Seven-on-one, hmm? It's not enough... it's not _nearly_ enough, if you hold the Vice-Captain rank," he commented, much to the anger of Renji.

"You think you can take us all on!?"

"Yes. I am an Espada, and you Shinigami are mere Vice-Captains. There is not an Espada in our ranks that would lose to such refuse that I'm slightly insulted that I am the one stuck killing the lot of you."

"Abarai-fukutaichou! This Arrancar is a major threat to Soul Society! We need to fulfill our duties as Vice-Captains and eliminate him!" Nanao piped up, speaking for the first time.

"You don't need to tell me twice!" Renji shouted.

"Howl, Zabimaru!"

Renji's Zanpakutou turned into his characteristic extending Shikai, which he then swung at Zommari. Zommari blinked, before he disappeared immediately from the view of all the Vice Captains, before reappearing in Renji's blind spot.

"Wha? I didn't even see him move..." Renji said in confusion, before something else made him balk even more.

All around the room, every other Vice-Captain had their swords out at the ready, and was clashing blades with another identical Zommari. All together, there were seven Zommaris around the room, including the one that had dodged Renji's attack.

"Gemelos Sonido..."

"I have massively improved over my previous number of five total clones. They will be more than enough to deal with Shinigami at the Vice-Captain level..."

"Don't underestimate us! Reap, Kazeshini!" Hisagi shouted, as his dangerous looking Shikai also entered the battlefield. He threw the bladed scythe out, catching the clone and dispelling it into the sound that formed it.

Another one attacked him, but that one too was sliced in half from the reach of Kazeshini. When Hisagi retracted the blade back, Hisagi rested it over his shoulder.

"Do you think your clones will be enough to beat us? Everyone here is a high-ranked member of the Gotei 13, and is trained to keep up with Hollow tricks like yours.

"Snap, Tobiume!"

"Growl, Haineko!"

"Smash, Gegetsuburi!"

The other Vice-Captains activated their Shikai as well, rapidly dispatching the clones in front of them. Zommari narrowed his eyes at the display in front of him, before he sighed.

"Such arrogance. Do you truly believe that simple clones are all that I am capable of? I have not even entered my Resurrección yet. Should I decide to use it, this battle would be over instantly..."

"What!?" Renji exclaimed.

"Fortunately for you, it has not quite gotten to that stage yet..." Zommari said. All of his clones were gone, so in response to that he drew his Zanpakutou for the first time.

He reappeared behind Hisagi, catching him offguard completely.

"My Sonido is among the fastest in the Espada, save for Naruto-sama. It would be unwise to try and even follow me with your eyes." he taunted, as he slashed into Hisagi's back.

The Vice-Captain of the Ninth Division stumbled forward, as a fair amount of blood gushed from the wound on his back.

"Hisagi!" shouted Renji, ignoring the title.

"Where are you looking at?" Zommari said, reappearing behind Renji. He just got up Shikai around in time to block the attack, and even countered when he extended his weapon.

Zommari, however, was ready for him, and disappeared yet again when it was clear that the weapon was headed his way. Hinamori was helping Hisagi to his feet, while Rangiku, Iba, Nanao, and Omaeda were all standing their ground with Zommari, who had reappeared in the middle of the room.

"Tobiume!" Hinamori shouted, flicking her Zanpakutou and sending a massive fireball towards Zommari. The Octava Espada disappeared as the fireball nearly hit Renji and blast a hole in the back wall. Zommari reappeared on the outside of it.

"Hinamori! Watch where you're attacking with that thing!" Renji yelled, after nearly getting singed by it.

Hinamori blushed.

"Sorry, Abarai-kun!"

"You can apologize later! He's on the roof now!" Iba exclaimed, his body leaning out of the hole that Hinamori had created. Hisagi was breathing heavily, kneeling on the ground.

"Hisagi, are you alright?" Renji said, rushing to his aid. Hisagi nodded.

"I'll be f-fine. Let's just go after him before he targets anyone else..."

The Shinigami almost rushed out of the hole made by Tobiume, though they stopped before that when they were almost obliterated by a point-blank Cero from Zommari in a sneak attack from the roof. If it wasn't for Hinamori's quick thinking, they would've all been engulfed in the blast.

Zommari was on the roof of the building, feeling no discomfort with the odd foot holding. The seven Shinigami flashed onto the roof, ready to begin the second round.

Zommari was also ready.

* * *

"Get enraged, Ira!"

A towering beast emerged onto the battlefield, visible from nearly every corner of the Seireitei. Shinigami gaped at the giant Hollow with the "10" tattoo on his chest, who was clearly ready to cause some destruction.

He resembled a ankylosaur in his shape, with his brown body, mask, and the club-like tail coming from his abdomen. He had several pairs of legs and was wearing a thin layer of cloth that was covering the first parts of his legs.

Yammy Llargo was ready for battle.

"Bugs! Bugs! You're all bugs waiting to be crushed! Die!" Yammy shouted, chewing the scenery as the Shinigami ran away from the monstrous Hollow. Several dozen of them were crushed to death in one punch from Yammy, as the punch obliterated a major alleyway that ran through the Seireitei.

He spotted more of them running away.

"Trash!" he roared, as he reared back his arm for another punch towards the other alleyway that the group of Shinigami was running down. Before he could connect, a metallic arm covered in an armored vambrace put itself between him and his targets.

"Huh?"

Yammy reacted in one of the common emotions for him: confusion. The Décima scratched his head with a massive forefinger, looking at the metal arm which connected to a body that was as big as he was. A massive metal

"What blocked my attack? What is this thing?"

The giant metal samurai that blocked Yammy's attack returned to its normal stance. Yammy still looked confused.

"Look! It's Komamura-taichou's Bankai!" a Shinigami shouted from the road down below.

"Huh? Taichou?" Yammy said to himself. His brain registered the words in his head, and he remembered that he was supposed to be doing something for Naruto.

He looked towards the streets, where every single Shinigami was running from the two giants in the Seireitei. That is, all but one. A large canine wearing a white haori was standing his ground in front of Yammy, a stern look on his face.

Yammy's confusion faded immediately, and a massive grin split upon his face.

"Ohhh, a Captain!"

* * *

"You are a brute, but you have already shown a great display of strength..." Byakuya commented, as the Sixth Division's barracks were practically destroyed by Nnoitra's rampage.

He was standing in the rubble, while Byakuya was out in the street, in a secluded area where not many Shinigami were rushing to and fro. They could go all out here.

Nnoitra twirled his odd Zanpakutou around, stepping out of the rubble and into the street. A crazed grin was on his face, as he noticed that his opponent was completely unharmed.

Byakuya decided to test his opponent.

"Hadou #4: Byakurai!" he said calmly, firing a quirk burst of white lightning from his fingertip. Nnoitra didn't even flinch, and instead merely held out his weapon and deflected the Kidou off to the side.

Byakuya flashed behind him, getting underneath his guard immediately. He drew his Zanpakutou, and noting the apparently slowness of the Arrancar, stabbed him straight through the stomach.

"AAUGHHH... not!" Nnoitra faked, as the tip of the blade jammed against his body, nowhere near enough to penetrate his super-strong Hierro. Byakuya looked slightly perturbed, and he backed away when he saw that his attack was a failure.

"Bitch! My Hierro is the strongest amongst the Espada, and it has only gotten stronger through my training! There's no way your flimsy fuckin' blade can penetrate it!"

"So it seems. My sealed blade is clearly not enough to defeat you, and Hadou Kidou does not seem to have an effect..." Byakuya admitted. He raised his blade, holding it vertically just past his face.

"Scatter... Senbonzakura."

Byakuya's Zanpakutou dissolved into hundreds of small pink blades that resembled cherry blossoms when scattering on the wind. Nnoitra didn't look impressed.

"Is that it?"

A bunch of the "petals" brushed up against Nnoitra, and he stared blankly at them as they did absolutely nothing. None of them were capable of penetrating his strong Hierro.

"What is with your gay-ass Zanpakutou! Flower petals? Are you serious?" Nnoitra mocked. He didn't seem to realize that the flower petals could normally rip a person to shreds.

"How disappointing! I was hoping for something a little more effective!" Nnoitra shouted, as he rushed Byakuya. The Sixth Division's Captain swung the hilt of his Zanpakutou, conjuring up a stream of petals that served as a shield from Nnoitra's downward slash.

Nnoitra retaliated and slashed at Byakuya from the right, who avoided the attack by flashing behind Nnoitra again. He raised his Zanpakutou in the air, and Nnoitra looked up as he saw the thousands of blades hovering in the air around fifteen feet, poised to come down upon him. The converged into a few dozen larger blades, also poised to come down upon Nnoitra.

He swung his Zanpakutou hilt down with a degree of finesse, allowing the blades to strike Nnoitra. The Sexta just stood there and took it, and as expected, it did not pierce his Hierro, even if they did stick out of his body.

The attack forced him against a wall however, which almost crumbled into pieces.

"Even if you do it over and over again, the result will be the same!" Nnoitra cackled, before he tried to raise an arm to pluck one of the blades out of his body. He found that he couldn't raise his arm.

"W-What is this?"

"Bakudo #30: Shitotsu Sansen. You did not even notice that I hid a Bakudo within my Shikai. You seem to have tough skin, and my Shikai's ability clearly will not finish you off. I just had to use a way to keep you in place..." Byakuya commented, pointing to the fact that three of the blades were of a bright yellow instead of pink.

"Damn it!" Nnoitra cursed, waving his arms around. The yellow light had pinned him completely against the wall.

"And now that you are, I will not hold back..." Byakuya said cryptically, as his Zanpakutou materialized back into a solid form. He raised his Zanpakutou, pointing it towards the ground.

He let go of the sword.

"Bankai..."

The sword rippled into the ground like it was a pool of water, disappearing into the liquid earth. Nnoitra looked confused at the display, wondering how he was going to attack.

"Senbonzakura Kageyoshi..."

As Byakuya said those words, a gigantic sword poked out of the ground, followed by another, and another. All in all, at least twelve giant swords rose out of the ground like columns, flanking Byakuya on either side.

Nnoitra looked surprised.

The swords glowed pink for a moment, before they dispersed into even more tiny shards that floated on the wind, this time their numbers somewhere in the millions.

Nnoitra's emotions went from surprise to amusement directly after that.

"More numbers? Is that all your Bankai can do? More numbers isn't gonna change shit, y'know!" Nnoitra screamed, as he exerted all of his strength and broke out of the binding Kidou fairly easily.

He grabbed his Zanpakutou off of the ground and tossed it by its chain, sending the extendable weapon flying. Byakuya fired another Byakurai at the weapon, deflecting it much like Nnoitra did before. It flew back towards Nnoitra's hand.

Byakuya looked contemplative. He could use more of his destructive techniques, but that would leave the Sixth Division in ruins. They were in a time of war however, and the use of their full power was permitted. A little property damage would be overlooked in the face of this crisis.

"Your defenses mean absolutely nothing..." Byakuya said. Nnoitra grinned. He was getting a little bit flustered, though he still didn't show it on the outside. He had read the file on Kuchiki Byakuya, which meant that he knew one way to get him to drop his guard.

"You have a little sister, don't ya?"

Byakuya halted in place.

"Since you're so damn weak, I think I'm gonna go after that little bitch when I'm done with you!" he taunted.

"_There it is..._"

Byakuya's face screwed up, and for the _smallest_ split-second, he dropped both his guard and his concentration, which was all the time Nnoitra needed to exploit it.

Normally, Nnoitra would be unable to outspeed Byakuya, but with the Captain flustered, he was easily able to get into close-quarters and slash at Byakuya. The Captain regained his concentration enough to block the attack before it made more than a shallow wound, but he was still injured from it.

Nnoitra grabbed the hem of his haori when Byakuya reacted to the strike, using his superior strength to hold him in place. Byakuya narrowed his eyes at Nnoitra, but then he noticed exactly how close Nnoitra was to him.

"You wanna use that Bankai of yours on me, and hurt yourself in the process?" Nnoitra pointed out.

He was within 85 centimeters of Byakuya.

"Close-combat doesn't suit you with your Zanpakutou. There's an area where you won't allow your blades to come within, 'cuz you'll hurt yourself if you do..."

"Scum..." Byakuya hissed. Nnoitra ignored the jab, before he used his free arm to lower his Zanpakutou right at Byakuya's neck. The Captain didn't flinch when the weapon was held to his throat. He still had both arms free, and he knew what he had to do.

"Goukei: Senbonzakura Kageyoshi..." he said, dropping his sword. Nnoitra's eyes widened.

"Are you fuckin' stupid!?" he shouted.

A sphere of of miniscule pink blades surrounded Nnoitra. There were no blind spots, and no points of escape. And yet, there was a difference this time.

Kuchiki Byakuya was inside of the sphere.

"There are a hundred million blades within the sphere. If not had not stated that you will go after Rukia next, I would have not forsaken the "hurtless area", and would have likely defeated me regardless. However, since you have decided to go after my pride, I will not hesitate to sacrifice myself. We will both perish within the Goukei..." Byakuya said. Nnoitra did not let him go.

"Fuck!"

The sphere converged on both combatants. There was an explosion of pink light, followed by an explosion, and the barracks of the Sixth Division were destroyed.

The explosion that the Goukei caused made heads turn all around Soul Society, and made people pause in their battles to witness the display. Even the fellow Captains were amazed at the display of power.

When the blades dispersed, their were two figures in the center of the destruction. One of them was lying on the ground, a bloody mess. The other was standing upright, with only a few scratches upon him.

"Hah! You just threw your life away! What made you think that I would be any more affected by that attack than any of your others. You could've used Kidou or something to get out of that. Kuchiki Byakuya... acting on his emotions! Never thought I'd see that with your reputation! I mention killing your sister for one minute and you completely lose it!" Nnoitra cackled.

Byakuya was on the ground, both his body and his Captain's haori in shreds. There were streaks of blood all over his body, some of it leaking down into a puddle directly underneath.

He was barely alive at this point.

His Zanpakutou lay uselessly at his side.

He could barely see the legs of the tall Arrancar ominously walking up to him.

"Hoo man, I hope I get a more satisfying fight later on, because that was just downright pitiful. But, you're a Captain nonetheless, and it's my job to get rid of shitheads like you. I should be looking for your key right about now, but I think I should finish you off first..."

"_My key? That's what they are after?" _Byakuya thought. He couldn't speak, for his throat was ruptured. But the fact that they wanted his key was something that baffled him

He didn't even know what the key was for. He was just instructed by the Captain-Commander to keep it safe at all times, lest he lose his position as Captain. That's all he knew about it.

"I would ask you where it is, but you probably can't even talk by this point anyway," Nnoitra commented. He was practically talking to himself at this point.

"_I hope Rukia manages to be safe..." _Byakuya thought. As long as she survived this war, that was all the mattered to him. He could be at peace knowing that.

Nnoitra was standing over him, casting a shadow over the fallen Byakuya. He pointed his crescent-like Zanpakutou down at Byakuya. It bore a remarkable resemblance to a guillotine.

Byakuya closed his eyes when he saw it, and Nnoitra crashed the blade down...

* * *

"What do you think you're doing, Zaraki!? This is our territory!"

"Huh? I don't see your name on it!" Zaraki Kenpachi replied to the Captain of the Second Division. There was a dispute on where each division was supposed to report to, which meant that the Eleventh Division was just doing what they felt like.

"Yeah, why don't ya just go back to your division and work on that sneakin' around that you Second Division wusses love so much?" another Eleventh Division member piped up.

"Zaraki..." Soifon hissed dangerously, to which Kenpachi only grinned. His hand was already on his Zanpakutou.

"Do you want to die?" Soifon asked in anger. Kenpachi only grinned.

"Well, I've never fought with you before. If I can get a good fight out of it, then yeah, I wouldn't mind dying!" Kenpachi said, swinging his Zanpakutou. The gust of wind that followed almost knocked back all of the Second Division members.

"You truly are insane, Zaraki Kenpachi. Even if this time of crisis, you betray the Gotei 13 by seeing out a pointless fight. But if you wish to be put down for the sake of the Gotei 13, then so be it..."

"Now, now, let's not fight. You're both on the same side, are you not?"

"Who's there? Show yourself!" Soifon demanded to the strange voice. The voice decided to comply with her demands, and a few seconds after she said that, a large throne made of bones smashed onto a nearby roof as the two carriers descended towards the ground.

There was a stocky old man reclining on the throne as his Fracción carried it around, and just going by his appearance he seemed like a king. Kenpachi and Soifon halted in their fight for a moment to take in the new arrival, and it didn't take Soifon long to realize he was an Arrancar... and an enemy.

"Arrancar?!" she shouted. Kenpachi witnessed her distress, and smiled a little wider when he realized that the old man in front of him was an enemy that he could fight.

Soifon drew her blade, a wakizashi with a yellow hilt. She held it to the side almost like a kunai, trying to make herself look as threatening as possible.

"Who are you?!"

The old man on the throne looked down at her with disdain.

"My name is Baraggan Louisenbairn, former king of Hueco Mundo and Cuarta Espada..." he said simply. Soifon's eyes widened, not so much at his name or the fact that he was a former king, but something else.

"Espada?!"

Baraggan raised an eyebrow, wrinkling his mustache slightly.

"You have heard of us? Color me surprised!"

His eyes trailed down to the two main opponents down there, before looking at the squad of Shinigami behind them. Unlike some of his comrades, he had not taken the time to educate himself on the Captains of Soul Society, but he could tell when he saw one.

Or two, in this case.

"Both of you seem to be Captains judging from your haoris and the fact that you are leading a fair number of underlings. Seems to be two opponents of Captain-class. It can't be helped, I suppose. I will just have to take on both of you at the same time..." Baraggan stated, to the surprise of all the Shinigami.

Never mind the arrogance, the Eleventh Division working together with anyone was a hoot in itself.

"You got sand for brains, old man? Why would the all-powerful Eleventh Division ever work together with these pussies!" one of the lower-ranked members of the Eleventh Division pointed out.

"Shut up, you stupid kid! I wasn't talking to you!" Baraggan roared. Even his Fracción flinched when they heard Baraggan's voice boom like that, and when it did they kneeled down in front of his throne immediately.

"Baraggan-sama, we await your orders..."

Baraggan scratched his chin.

"Vega, Nirgge, I order you two to take care of the refuse in the back. I will be the one to do battle with the two Captains..." Baraggan ordered, as Ggio and Nirgge saluted their commanding Espada and king.

"Hold your ground! Do not let them overcome you!" Soifon ordered to her own men. The two Fracción landed on the ground in a parallel line, and they casually walked up to the common soldiers.

"So... which do you want?" Ggio asked. Nirgge contemplated this for a moment.

"The meatheads..." he responded, clearly referring to the Eleventh Division. Ggio nodded; he had wanted the "ninja" group anyway. This worked out in his favor.

"Bite it off, Tigre Estoque!" he shouted, releasing his Zanpakutou. Over to the side, Nirgge did a similar thing, transforming into a large, green mammoth Hollow.

The two Arrancar flashed out of existence, stunning the Shinigami, except for the two Captains. A large shadow appeared directly on top of the Eleventh Division members, rapidly growing larger before Nirgge slammed down on the middle of their group, creating a large crater and a dozen dead Shinigami as the rest of them scattered. On the other side, Ggio was slashing Shinigami to ribbons.

"Tch, garbage..." Soifon thought, seeing her men fall so easily to a common Arrancar. She was about to intervene, but Baraggan appeared out of nowhere and grabbed her arm before she could even move.

"I believe I said that I am to be your opponent..." Baraggan said dangerously. Kenpachi looked bored over on the side. He didn't care about the small fry over there.

"Doesn't matter to me. Though, can you fight?" Kenpachi asked, pointing his blade at the old-looking Arrancar that was currently making a fool out of Soifon.

Instead of answering that question, Baraggan returned to his throne, shoving a hand into the confines of the bones. A few seconds later, and he pulled out an enormous great axe from the throne, clearly his Zanpakutou.

Kenpachi's grin became crazier when he saw it, but he was the only one who was happy about it. Soifon was absolutely livid after seeing her men get cut up by the Espada's subordinates. And now he had the audacity to humiliate her.

The throne of bones disappeared in a flash of reiryoku, and Baraggan slammed into the tiled ground, cracking it and sending up large chunks. Soifon couldn't take it anymore.

"You bastard..." she shouted, as she flashed away. She was about to attack him from the rear, but once again it felt like she was slowed down as Baraggan grabbed her leg and slammed her into the ground.

Without even changing his expression, he swung his great-axe out, blocking the sword strike from Kenpachi, who had rushed in and attacked him right after he slammed Soifon into the ground.

Baraggan blocked the attack, but the force of the swing was strong enough to almost cleave the downed Soifon in two, who leapt out of the way at the last second.

"Zaraki, you bastard!" she shouted.

"You're in the way! Get out of here!" Kenpachi shouted back at his fellow Captain. He clearly had no qualms about attacking her if she got in the way of his target.

"Hm? You still insist on fighting with each other, even against an opponent whom you cannot hope to defeat alone?" Baraggan mused, to which Kenpachi scoffed.

"HA! I don't need her help to drop you! You haven't even shown me that you're worth more than a mild warm-up!" Kenpachi shot back. Baraggan wrinkled his mustache.

"You're right! You both are Captains after all, and so far I have only used my powers of time dilation against you. I suppose there is no point to holding back in the first place..." Baraggan finished, withdrawing contact from Kenpachi's Zanpakutou.

He angled his great axe Zanpakutou down towards the ground, and the red orb on the center opened, revealing it to be a giant red axe in the center of the axe. Red spiritual power rose off Baraggan and his Zanpakutou in waves.

"Rot..."

"Arrogante..."

A wave of deep purple reiatsu washed off Baraggan as it engulfed him. The dark void of reiatsu covered him as if it were a cloak, shielding him from view from everyone around. His Fracción and even the lower ranked Shinigami paused to look at the terrifying display, and beads of sweat ran down their faces.

Ggio ripped out the jugular of another Shinigami using his release, but even he was terrified by the power that the Cuarta Espada was displaying.

"I haven't seen him release his Zanpakutou in years. It's as terrifying as always..."

The reiryoku settled quickly, rapidly becoming the garb that encompassed Baraggan as he stepped out of the void. He had changed completely. He was now the complete visage of a skeleton, literally. A gold crown sat atop of his bony skull.

Soifon was petrified, and even Kenpachi was standing still in place, though he was not afraid. He was just a little perplexed by Baraggan's appearance, as he had never seen anything like it.

"Respira..." Baraggan said simply. He opened his mouth, and a deadly purple mist entered the air and spread out, particularly towards Soifon. The Respira rotted the tiled ground and the structures in its path towards the Second Division's Captain.

"What is this?" she said, before she flashed away.

"Sting all enemies to death, Suzumebachi!" she shouted as she appeared directly behind Baraggan. She was about to go in for the the kill, but she noticed the very subtle mist hovering around Baraggan, so she backed off at the last second.

"_If I so much as touch him, I will probably be rotted away like the ground. I need to keep my distance for the time being..._" Her eyes flicked over to Kenpachi, who was still standing in place.

"_Damn Zaraki isn't going to be of any help..._" she thought. Her Shikai was a close-range weapon only, which meant that it was practically disabled against an opponent like him.

"AAAUUUUUGHHHH!"

She looked over to the right as Kenpachi gave an ecstatic battle cry and rushed his opponent. Baraggan sensed him coming, though no one could tell what he was thinking underneath his hollow gaze.

"Idiot!" Soifon spat at the Eleventh Division's Captain. She had to do something, before the Gotei 13 lost a Captain to the enemy. She may have despised Zaraki, but he was useful to the Gotei 13.

"Bakudo #61: Rikujoukorou!" she said, casting the powerful Bakudo spell. Six rods of light materialized out of thin air, slamming into Kenpachi's midsection and pinning him in place.

"What the- Oi!" Kenpachi complained. That likely wouldn't hold him for long, but it would keep him from running in and killing himself for the time being while she distracted the Arrancar.

"Oi! Soifon! What the fuck do you think you're doing using pussy shit Kidou on me!?" Kenpachi griped. Soifon ignored him for the time being; she would have one shot to finish this.

"Oh? It would be much more efficient for you to attack two-on-one, though I will commend you for your quick thinking. If that brute would've continued, he would be a pile of dust by now. Yet you have disabled your only usable ally. Or perhaps you have another trick up your sleeve?" Baraggan remarked.

"_I don't have time to wrap the Ginjouhan around any structure of support. Looks like I'll have to take the entire recoil at once. If it can destroy this Arrancar, then so be it..._" she thought.

She raised the stinger on her hand into the air.

"Bankai!"

Golden yellow reiatsu exploded off of Soifon as her small Shikai reformed into something that was much larger. When the reiatsu dispersed, a giant missile launcher was being supported by her right arm.

"Jakuho Raikoben!"

Baraggan watched the powerful weapon with a slight amount of unease, though Kenpachi was still struggling.

"Oi, Soifon! Stop hogging all the fun for yourself! You're gonna use your Bankai on him?"

"Everyone, move out of here now! Vacate the area! That's an order!" Soifon shouted. However, when she turned around, she was disheartened to see that most of her forces had already been annihilated. There was a dead Nirgge upon the ground, but Ggio was still alive and kicking, and was now making a mess of both division's forces.

Soifon growled; her forces were already running away in the face of such danger.

"_Well, the less people that see it the better..._" she commented. She still hated her Bankai; it was the first time she had used it in years, and none of her division had ever actually seen her use it before.

She raised the golden cylinder and aimed it, the slits in her face guard allowing her pinpoint aim.

"Eat this!"

An eruption of fire emerged from the back end, and the Bankai fired a large missile from its case, which went rocketing through the air, tracking its target down.

Baraggan grunted as the fast-moving projectile moved towards his vantage point on the roof. Underneath his mask, he was grinning completely as he used his even stronger time dilation field to move himself away from where the explosion would hit.

The missile burst into an enormous explosion of force and fire. Baraggan just stood away from the blast, not being affected by the recoil in the slightest.

However, the Bankai had an adverse affect on its master, the recoil being even stronger because she did not wrap the Ginjouhan around herself like she normally did when using it.

The blast hit her with a lesser force, knocking her back with an unrestrained ferocity as she flew through several buildings. Blood emerged from the corner of her mouth as she took a beating and came to a halt almost two blocks away from where she fired her Bankai.

Baraggan just stood on the roof and watched as the recoil hit her at full force. Down below, Kenpachi had not even been budged by the attack, though he did seem a little excited that Soifon was able to pack such a punch.

His own natural strength and the force of the blast had helped him brush off the Kidou she had put on him. The rods that bound him disappeared, as mobility returned to his body once again.

"Finally, I'm free of that annoying Kidou! Looks like Soifon did some stupid Bankai trick that didn't even scratch you, and now she's dug herself a hole in the ground afterwards. So I guess I'll take you on now..."

Baraggan hummed.

"A brute that only charges in and attacks physically. Someone like that can never hope to defeat me..." Baraggan explained to him, to which Kenpachi just grinned wider.

"'hat so, huh? Well, don't blame me when you end up dying!"

Kenpachi charged Baraggan.

In response, Baraggan withdrew a slimmer version of the axe he had when he was unreleased. He blocked Kenpachi's attack with ease, but that wasn't the main point.

While he had locked blades with Kenpachi, he exhaled Respira from his mouth yet again. The fingers on Kenpachi's hand began to rot away, but when Kenpachi saw this, he only grinned.

He stepped back from Baraggan and quickly sliced off his entire hand without hesitation, watching it rot away into dust. Baraggan watched with amusement as the one-handed Kenpachi looked even more pumped up after that display.

"Man, that breath of yours is annoying! How am I supposed to beat you if I can't even get close!" Kenpachi said. Apparently he wasn't as stupid as he looked.

Baraggan was about to attack him once again, but he picked up a strong reiatsu getting closer and closer to him. He was apparently near where the other Captain had been knocked back towards. Once they split up into Soul Society, he could isolate his target. No one around to help him there.

He was going to take over this operation now, and reclaim his rightful place as the true leader of Hollows.

"Well, are you ready to start Round 2?" Kenpachi asked. Even with one hand, he was still fearsome. He looked about ready to take off his eyepatch, but he wouldn't get the chance now.

Baraggan said nothing, because he wasn't interested in Kenpachi anymore. Without even responding to him, Baraggan disappeared onto the wind in a Sonido, leaving Kenpachi there alone.

"Oi!"

* * *

"That didn't kill the bastard! He has some trick up his sleeve that I haven't grasped yet, but what is it?" Soifon asked herself, frustrated by her lack of progress.

She had broken a few bones during the recoil as she slammed through building after building, before she finally came to rest a few blocks away from the scene by crashing into a wall.

She coughed up blood dangerous, dragging herself to her feet as she panted. A few cuts and scrapes and broken bones, but she could still fight.

She hefted her Bankai over her shoulder.

"I have to get back there and defeat him now!"

She was about to flash back to the area where she had fought the skeletal Arrancar...

...But before she could even move, Baraggan had appeared over her before she could even move.

"I don't understand. What are your powers?" she had the audacity to ask the Arrancar before her, who merely regarded her with a neutral look. Her mind was working on overdrive, and she still didn't get it.

"You don't get it, do you?" Baraggan's kingly voice boomed.

"The ten Espadas each represent an aspect of death. In other words, those are the reasons why people die. Each Espada's power or personality reflects that in some way..."

"Emptiness..."

"Sacrifice..."

"Loneliness..."

"Rage..."

"Madness.."

"Intoxication..."

"Destruction..."

"Despair..."

"Betrayal..."

"And the aspect that I embody is old age. Time, if you will. That is what my power is. Something that everyone must face, and no one can escape from."

He lifted the bruised Soifon up by her neck. He was surprisingly strong with just being bones.

"I used time to slow down your movements, and I used time to avoid your attacks. My Respira is also an example of my use of time..." His grip tightened on her.

"Do not try to resist. Resisting is an affront of God. I will control your life, and I shall control how you do. I have domain over all living things, and they are there to be bent to my will. Because I am a God..." Baraggan mused.

"Now, die..."

He released more respira, and Soifon screamed in agony. Her flesh was being rotted away before her very eyes as Baraggan's Respira took its toll on her. First her throat rotted in dust, but the dying woman was still alive until her internal organs were rotted away. Her flesh, muscles, and organs all rotted away from the Respira.

She was already dead by that point.

Baraggan continued to rot her down even as she was a skeleton.

He had completely reduced her to a pile of dust.

He felt the dust wash through his bony fingers, but he didn't feel satisfied with that kill. Not at all. He did not come to this exact location to kill the Captain he had fought just a few minutes ago.

"Man, again with all that "God" crap. Don't you ever fucking get tired of it?"

"Naruto..." Baraggan spat out the word with an intense amount of hatred.

"Well, thanks to that, I managed to get the keys for both the Second and Eleventh Divisions..."

Naruto was currently lying on his stomach on top of the wall overlooking Baraggan, his head and shoulders hanging off the side as he reclined up there, apparently relaxed. He pulled two identical golden keys from his pocket. One of them had the kanji for "2" on it, and the other had the kanji for "11".

"So I suppose I should thank you for getting rid of one of the Captains, but question remains: what are you going to do now?" Naruto asked.

Baraggan said nothing.

For a few seconds, everyone was silent. But then Baraggan threw his powerful Gran Caida axe directly at Naruto's head. The axe spun in the air at an incredible rate, pulverizing the wall that Naruto was reclining on.

"So, it's going to come down to that, huh? And here I thought we could make up and be friends!" Naruto said happily, making mushy and exaggerated kissy noises. He was now standing on the wall adjacent to the one that had been destroyed.

"Silence! It is your fault that I lost my kingdom in the first place, and even now you insist to be leader. I am God! I am the rightful King! Not some stupid brat that doesn't even know how to rule!"

"Hey, don't pin the loss of your kingdom on me! I may have weakened it severely, but it was Aizen who came in and gave it the final blow, you realize..." Naruto admonished.

"Shut up, you stupid brat! You or Aizen, it makes no difference! I will have you destroyed!" Baraggan shouted madly.

Naruto sighed, before he grinned maniacally.

"I guess we couldn't avoid this. Looking back, you were the first tangible enemy I fought from the time I became a Hollow. Before Soul Society, before Aizen, before Konoha, it was you. I'm surprised we've managed to work together for so long, but you've always hated me, haven't you? That hasn't changed. Though, you wouldn't even be in this situation if you had killed me all those years ago, but you let me live for some stupid-ass competition because you were bored. And I gave you exactly that. I bet you hate yourself right about now, don't you?" Naruto taunted.

"Siiilleennnnnceee!" Baraggan screamed, chucking his axe at Naruto yet again.

* * *

Okay, and we're done here. First chapter that's over ten thousand words here, so I'm definitely happy I'm able to create longer chapters now, even if the process was incredibly laborious.

So, a lot of deaths in this chapter. One Espada and two Captains, and a whole load of Shinigami. I put a warning for character death at the beginning; it's about time that it's really going to come in full force.

**Translations and Other Features**

Konjiki Ashisogi Jizou: Golden Leg-Cutting Jizou

Zabimaru: Snake Tail

Gemelos Sonido: Sound Twins

Kazeshini: Wind Death

Tobiume: Flying Plum Tree

Haineko: Ash Cat

Wabisuke: Apology

Ira: Anger

Senbonzakura: A Thousand Cherry Blossoms

Bakudo #30: Shitotsu Sansen: Binding Art #30: Beak-Piercing Triple Beam

Senbonzakura Kageyoshi: Vibrant Display of a Thousand Cherry Blossoms

Goukei: Mawscape

Tigre Estoque: Tiger Rapier

Arrogant: Arrogant

Respira: Breathe

Suzumebachi: Hornet

Bakudo #61: Rikujoukorou: Binding Art #61: Six Rod Light Prison

Jakuho Raikoben: Hornet Thunder Whip

Gran Caida: Great Fall

**Current Espada**

1st: Naruto Uzumaki

2nd: Ulquiorra Cifer

3rd: Coyote Starrk

4th: Baraggan Louisenbairn

5th: Tia Harribel

6th: Nnoitra Gilga

7th: Grimmjow Jeagerjaquez

8th: Zommari Rureaux

9th: Szayel Aporro Granz (deceased)

10th: Yammy Llargo

**Konoha Association**

Namikaze Minato: 5th Division Captain

Uzumaki Kushina: 3rd Division Captain

Jiraiya: 9th Division Captain

Hatake Kakashi: 5th Division Vice-Captain (deceased)

Rin: 3rd Division Vice-Captain (Captain level)

Tsunade: 4th Division Vice-Captain (Captain level)

Sarutobi Hiruzen: Visored

Hyuuga Hinata: 13th Division Vice-Captain (above Vice-Captain level)

Nara Shikamaru: 8th Division 3rd Seat (above Vice-Captain level)

Inuzuka Kiba: 7th Division 4th Seat (Vice-Captain level)

Hyuuga Neji: 6th Division 3rd Seat (above Vice-Captain level)

Yamanaka Ino: 10th Division 3rd Seat (Vice-Captain level)

Sorry for the long author's note at the end, but there was a lot of stuff to explain.

**_Alban55_**


	53. Respira

Oh, I forgot to announce this last chapter, but this story is now over three years old. A little bit hard to believe.

Did anyone else hear about the announcement for the Xbox One? I don't understand how Microsoft can fuck up so badly and make such a colossal, money-grubbing pile of shit. I was planning on getting two consoles for the next-gen. A Wii U and either a PS4/Xbox One. But after the reveal of the Xbox One, I'm firmly in the PS4 camp now because of the crap that Microsoft is pulling. This is probably the first time I legitly hope a console crashes and burns, simply because of what it represents.

Okay, done. Sorry about that, please direct your attention to the story below.

* * *

Chapter 53: Respira

The axe that Baraggan threw obliterated yet another chunk of wall that Naruto had decided to take refuge on. This time, however, he did not flit to another section of wall, but instead leapt off the crumbling wall onto the tiled ground, ready to face Baraggan.

That blow was strong enough to puncture even his Hierro. Perhaps he should've demoted Baraggan further, or at least he should've went lackluster on his training over the past few years if he had known that this was going to happen.

The Gran Caída axe whirled through the air, whipping around like a boomerang as it flew back towards Baraggan's hands. It seemed like it was headed directly into Naruto's position on its way back.

A forceful gust of wind from the axe destroyed a few more bricks along the walls in the surrounding area, but the Primera wasn't phased by the apparently powerful weapon.

Naruto closed his eyes wistfully, placing his hand on his hip, drawing his Zanpakutou from its sheathe and blocking the oncoming axe with his very first strike. He manipulated it upwards so it missed Naruto completely and was then caught by Baraggan.

"I'm going to kill you here, you insect, after all these long years." he said. His voice was incredibly low-pitched, but Naruto could easily feel the hatred that existed in Baraggan's tone.

Baraggan then gave Naruto a short half-lidded stare, his eyes dangerously shaded.

"I'M GOING TO TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR ARMY... NARUTO!" Baraggan roared, releasing all of his reiatsu. It rocketed higher, and higher, and higher, until it was practically palpable in the atmosphere.

Naruto didn't flinch.

"YOU'LL REGRET ALLOWING ME EVEN GREATER POWER!"

He pointed his Gran Caida axe at the ground, similar to how his first release worked.

"Resurrección Arrogante: Segunda Etapa!"

His spiritual pressure grew larger still, as the mist morphed Baraggan's first Resurrección into something even more terrifying. But Naruto was ready for him completely.

When Baraggan emerged from the mist of reiatsu, his cloak was longer. Whereas before he at least a little bit form-fitting, it now was heavy and flowing with at least a few feet of excess. He looked even more the visage of a god of death. It covered his body completely, but Naruto always wondered whether he even had a body underneath all that excess of robe.

Besides his robe, there were thick black strands of material coming out of his back like tree branches, making Baraggan look even more gnarled and old. His face was shielded by a thick black hood. His crown was integrated into the black linen.

Baraggan was silent for a moment, before he reached into his expansive cloak and pulled out two enormous axes, similar in shape to Gran Caida but easily bigger.

"Bringing out the big guns early, I see. Well, I don't suppose I can blame you..." Naruto commented, as Baraggan rubbed his two axes against each other, creating a loud grinding noise.

"You will regret the steps I have taken to become stronger. You are no match for me!" Baraggan shouted again. To Naruto, this just seemed like one giant gloat fest.

Naruto was twirling his Zanpakutou on his finger.

"Yeah, yeah. So are we gonna start or what? I've got another old fucktard to hunt down, you know..." Naruto said halfheartedly, catching his Zanpakutou by its hilt.

"I know what you're capable of, Baraggan! We've been over this before. Your ability within your Resurrección: Segunda Etapa would be near impossible to avoid if you didn't know what it was, but unfortunately for you, I do!" Naruto lectured. He was lecturing to nobody however, for Baraggan was ready to begin attacking, and was not listening to Naruto ramble in the slightest.

He held both of his axes out, and upon closer inspection it was revealed that they weren't completely identical. The one in his right hand was closer in resemblance to his sealed Zanpakutou, being incredibly large, bulky and just generally powerful. There was a red crest in the center.

The one in his left hand was a different story. It was smaller and more streamlined, much more similar in appearance to his Gran Caída from his first release. To compliment the other axe, however, there was a blue crest also in the center.

For a split-second, Baraggan released his Respira and waited. The area around him rotted, but the dying breath dispersed almost immediately, leaving a very small amount of space decayed. Baraggan was not releasing any Respira at that point forward.

A dark point of reiatsu materialized on the very tip of the blade of his larger axe, spreading outward and covering it like a glue. With a quick grunt, he swung his axe horizontally at where Naruto was standing.

Naruto contemplated swinging his sword at the oncoming wave of force. He reached for his Zanpakutou, but...

"Not!" Naruto cried childishly, moving out of the way of the oncoming force. The force from Baraggan's swing crackled in the air right at the spot where Naruto had been standing not even a second earlier.

When it hit that spot, all of the material within a certain radius began to rot and decay. Even the air began to turn a unhealthy yellowish color as it too rotted underneath Baraggan's ability.

"You've really developed that ability of yours with your second release. I doubt it will be enough, though..." Naruto commented. Baraggan swung his axe three times in a criss-cross formation, creating three more areas where the world began to rot underneath the influence of Respira.

"Using that axe, you can do more than just limit Respira to a small field around yourself. Wherever you swing that axe at, your Respira is transported to the pinpointed area at which you swung. Every time. Without fail. And that's just the ability of _one _of your axes..." Naruto commented. Baraggan continued to hack away.

A few times, he set up a trap. He knew that Naruto was going to continue dodging, so he used his initial attack as a diversion to lure him into an area he had already marked with his Respira.

Naruto saw through it fairly easily. He avoided every single trap that Baraggan set for him, nimbly keeping himself on the move while keenly pointing out any traps that Baraggan may have set.

"Rot! Decay! Die!" Baraggan chanted, letting loose a rapid flurry of swings that coated his range with Respira fields. Naruto noticed that no matter what happened, he couldn't swing his axe more then six times without recoiling.

"_There's the opening..._" Naruto surmised, taking the split-second where Baraggan recoiled from his own strikes and faltered in his battle stance just a little bit.

There was a field of Respira ahead of him, though there was a clear path to Baraggan that he could touch without being rotted away. He darted through the area before the Respira could fully disperse, holding out his Zanpakutou to attack.

However, he didn't clash blades with Baraggan. He knew he had to refrain from getting too close to the former king, seeing how he still had his Respira force-field around him. If he clashed blades with Baraggan, he would lose his Zanpakutou.

He concentrated his Cero on the tip of the blade, retaliating when Baraggan swung his Zanpakutou at the oncoming Naruto.

Naruto ducked under it nimbly, bending his knees and dodging it almost like he was doing the limbo, retaining himself within that position. He pointed a finger as close as he could at Baraggan, firing a quick Bala from his index finger.

The flash blinded Baraggan momentarily, causing Baraggan to recoil in surprise and allowing Naruto to stand up. His swung his blade, firing the Cero he had charged onto his blade in a downward strike upon Baraggan.

Little chunks of bone, cloth, and orange reiatsu mixed in a giant explosion of force as Naruto's attack took off a fair chunk of Baraggan's body. Still, that amount of damage would only result in Baraggan getting angrier.

"Whoa!" Naruto cried out, as Baraggan retaliated with a reckless swing of his axe. Naruto flopped away from the scene lightly, moving away from the Respira that followed and landing on one knee ten feet away from it.

Despite being pushed back, he smiled. He pointed both of his index fingers at Baraggan, like he was pointing a childish finger gun at Baraggan. However, an orange blip appeared on the ends of his fingers.

"Bala Rápida..."

Baraggan grunted as Naruto fired rapid Balas out of his index fingers at breakneck speeds. He dodged to the right, running along the ground as he just missed the quick Balas that Naruto was still shooting.

Naruto halted for a moment, throwing his palm out as he shot a Cero in a split-second, throwing off the momentum that he had had earlier. Baraggan jumped at the explosion of reiryoku, this time holding out his blue-crested axe.

Naruto flashed into the air using Sonido, but Baraggan was prepared for him to just that. He gathered reiatsu around his second axe, chuckling to himself as Naruto prepared to avoid his oncoming attack.

"Too naive..." Baraggan remarked to himself. His blue-crested axe glowed with reiatsu, as the blue crest on the center cracked underneath the pressure.

A split-second later, and Naruto was standing on the ground, like he had never moved into the air. He looked slightly surprised, but for someone who's time had just been undone, he looked far less shocked that he should have.

"Renacimiento... Have you forgotten who helped you develop that ability in the first place?" a frustrated Naruto pointed out, to which Baraggan swung his axe again.

Naruto was now standing exactly where he had been when he had charged Baraggan earlier. In other words, he was as close as he could possibly get without being rotted away.

Naruto grit his teeth in annoyance at his situation, but Baraggan was already trying to attack him with his regular Respira. Whenever he tried to flash away from Baraggan, he would be brought right back to where he was with Renacimiento.

"Son of a bitch..." Naruto cursed. A wave of Respira was about to wash all over him, making sure that there would be absolutely nothing left when he was done.

"You're really going to force me to use my ability?" Naruto said incredulously. Baraggan's ability was a little hard to deal with for a fighter like him, but to be pushed to this level was astounding.

"Die, Naruto!"

Naruto smirked before he charged up his orange reiatsu into his hand. He waved his arm around in a quick circle, before the reiatsu on his hand glowed ever brighter. When Naruto reached out his arm, the cloud of reiatsu formed into a solid like, which was seemingly directed around Naruto to avoid him completely.

Naruto was continuing to perform strange motions with his hands and arms, and in response to them the wave of Respira that was meant for him hovered harmlessly a safe distance behind Naruto.

"I see. Reiatsu and reiryoku manipulation... the signature ability of your unreleased state, though I have heard that you use it so rarely that only a few living beings have ever seen you use it..." Baraggan commented. Naruto didn't respond to his comments, but as he was standing in his position while holding a rigid stance, the Respira behind him soared into the air.

Naruto waited for just one second, before he shot his arm out horizontally.

The wave of Respira shot down at Baraggan, washing over its own master. However, it either passed through or passed over the Cuarta Espada as if it were harmless water.

Of _course_ he wouldn't be affected by it. He had his own little tricks that protected him from his own power. Using it against him would be out of the question for the time being.

"Fool, did you honestly believe anything would happen when you tried that?" Baraggan asked. The Respira that Naruto had redirected back at Baraggan began to settle, but Naruto didn't lose his stance.

Baraggan swung his blue-crested axe at the dissipating Respira, and within a second it was back to normal, ready to be used by Baraggan to decay things.

However, this time, Baraggan was doing something a little bit different...

He was manipulating both of his axes in a bizarre fashion, like he was going to do something in tandem with them.

"Caja del Tiempo..."

He thrust his red-crested axe forward, followed by his blue one.

"Oh, crap..." Naruto noted. The miasma that was the Respira was taking a new shape, and as more mist fell off of Baraggan's body, it got larger and larger, until it was beginning to form a gigantic sphere.

Baraggan wasn't done at that point either. He swung his blue axe harder, allowing his red reiatsu to wash off of him. It merged with the gigantic ball of Respira.

Naruto looked uncertain on how to avoid or combat the gigantic ball of death and decay, because this was of the few tricks in Baraggan's arsenal that he had never seen before.

The Caja del Tiempo swelled to an enormous size, to the point where Naruto didn't even know how it kept its shape. At this point, Baraggan stopped adding Respira and reiryoku to the ball.

"Rot for eternity, Naruto!" Baraggan roared, swinging both of his axes at the exact same time. Naruto tried to avoid the oncoming ball of Respira, but it was far too large and far too quick.

There was a loud crack that resonated throughout Soul Society as Naruto was engulfed by the sphere. Even Shinigami who were nowhere near the sight were blown away by the sheer force that Baraggan's attack had created. It obliterated a good chunk of the street, but Naruto himself wasn't subject to such destructive force.

Baraggan stood in safety away from the blast, regarding the Caja del Tiempo as it crackled and swirled. Underneath his hood and skull-like visage, Baraggan seemed oddly satisfied, which was bizarre for the usually grumpy Arrancar.

"You should've kept closer tags on your subordinates, Naruto Uzumaki. You may have allowed me access to the Segunda Etapa, but I have developed this technique in secret, for the sole purpose of defeating you..."

"I will never forgive you, Naruto. I have bided my time for so long, waiting for this moment, when I could imprison you within my Caja del Tiempo. When I disperse it into a pocket dimension, you will know suffering as you constantly aged and revitalized over eternity..."

Baraggan threw his arms out, dropping both of his axes, which both stuck into the ground. He spread his arms out like he was an eagle, and he cackled in merriment.

"And now for the grand finale!"

He clenched his fist, and the Caja del Tiempo began to ripple. It imploded upon itself, shrinking in size until there was nothing but a small blip in the air, which also disappeared.

Within the Caja del Tiempo, Naruto wasn't perturbed. By all means, he should've been succumbing to the effects of eternal time acceleration and reversal, but he wasn't.

He was breathing a little bit heavily, but he was not injured, and his body wasn't rotting away. He hadn't expected something like this to be in Baraggan's arsenal, but at its core it was something he could deal with.

His hands were charged with orange reiatsu, and were thrust out to the side. He had sheathed his Zanpakutou. He was manipulating the reiatsu and reiryoku around him, creating a protective bubble around himself that protected him from the powerful attack. However, this was almost as much as he could handle at one time.

He rotated his arms around, keeping the protective casing around him intact. He could just barely see Baraggan standing outside the miasma of reiatsu and mist. He was getting ready to finish the technique.

The Respira began to converge on him, and if even the slightest bit of it touched him, he would be trapped within the sphere for eternity. He relaxed for just a moment, breathing in and out as an idea came to him. For just a split-second, he eliminated the protective casing he had creating with his reiatsu manipulation powers, allowing the flow of Respira to converge on him. However, he redirected his power into his right hand, creating an open path out of the sphere that he dove for instantaneously.

While he was moving out of the Caja del Tiempo, his left hand was working a far more intricate technique. At the end of his finger, he used his own reiatsu and gathered a tiny portion of the Respira and stably held it in the palm of his left hand so it wasn't touching his skin.

Outside, as the Caja del Tiempo collapsed into nothing, Naruto crashed out of the sphere unharmed, flopping onto the ground a distance away from Baraggan.

When he landed on the ground, he fired a Cero from his free hand. Baraggan redirected it easily using one of his axes, but a standard attack wasn't why Naruto fired it. It was to gauge Baraggan's reaction. A Cero was probably unnecessary for what he was about to do, though. He just needed to hit him with a fast attack, and if that was the case, a Bala would work perfectly.

Baraggan held a surprised posture as he noticed for the first time that Naruto had survived his ultimate attack, and there was nothing more he could do at this point. Unless he could find an attack that would be effective on Naruto, he was going to lose this battle.

Naruto's left hand was disabled for the time being until he could get an opening, but he drew his Zanpakutou once again with his free hand. He waved it around in a snake-like fashion, manipulating the Respira that naturally exuded from Baraggan. and practically taking its control from him.

Baraggan created more Respira in response, but he was still annoyed that Naruto was able to sap control from him so easily. He kept on trying and kept on failing to regain control from Naruto.

"You little brat!" Baraggan roared in anger, when he realized that his Respira was now useless. He then charged Naruto, using his time dilation to get a quick edge, readying both his axes in an attempt to take off Naruto's head.

"_Now!_" Naruto screamed to himself within his own mind. He swung his sword one more time, creating a wall of reiatsu that shrouded him from view and hindered Baraggan's vision.

A quick Sonido later, and Naruto had appeared behind Baraggan. He quickly charged up a Bala in his left hand, which was the hand that contained his captured reiatsu.

He shoved his hand as close to Baraggan's face as he possibly could while the other Espada was still blindsided to him, releasing the Bala. Baraggan dodged at the last second, but the Bala caught just a little bit of his hood.

Naruto dispersed the cloud of Respira as Baraggan retreated farther away from him, looking satisfied. That attack was all he needed. Baraggan took a knee and shoved one of his axes into the ground again.

Naruto was already sheathing his sword.

Baraggan hummed in confusion.

"The match is over, Baraggan. You're dead..." Naruto mentioned.

"Hmm. Your attack missed me, brat. Don't think you can kill a god so easily..." Baraggan said. Naruto said nothing, but instead just raised his finger and pointed at Baraggan.

"You don't know what I did when I was in your Caja del Tiempo, do you?"

Baraggan looked confused for a moment, until he noticed that his hood was beginning to rot.

"I know all about your power of Respira. You have complete control over it, and it would be hard to use it against you, but even you can't stand up to it in the end. When I was inside your sphere, I used my control over reiatsu to take just a little bit of your Respira as my own. I mixed it in with that last Bala I fired, the one that singed your hood was just a distraction so you wouldn't notice that your own power was underneath it..."

"Y-You bastard..." Baraggan grunted. He threw his axe out of desperation at Naruto, hoping for a clean kill. Yet Naruto ducked underneath it easily, and raised an eyebrow at Baraggan.

"Are you sure there isn't one last thing you haven't noticed yet?" The Respira was beginning to rot away Baraggan's body but it wasn't as effective as normal.

"Your Renacimiento power is also tempered in with that Respira. I took your reiatsu from within the Caja del Tiempa, meaning you are not meant to rot away from Respira, but are instead meant to suffere from Caja del Tiempo..."

Baraggan seemed to realize it only when Naruto explained it to him, but at this point it was too late. The little blip of reiatsu that Naruto had collected within the sphere had now swelled to a greater size, and was rotting away Baraggan's skeletal body in front of his own eyes.

Baraggan fell to his knees as the Caja del Tiempo worked it magic. It was restoring one part of Baraggan's body while simultaneously decaying the rest, in an endless cycle of agony that Baraggan had developed himself.

"You worthless brat! I _let_ you live all those years ago and _this_ is how you repay me!? I won't die, I'll _never die_. Not until you are destroyed by my royal axes!" Baraggan shouted manically, as the Respira engulfed him.

His voice became muffled as the Respira began to disappear to the pocket dimension from whence it came, and Naruto was left staring at nothing but empty space as it disappeared completely.

Baraggan was nowhere to be seen.

Naruto put a hand to his chin, grinning lightly before breaking out into a psychotic laugh. He hadn't had that much fun in a fight for a while now, and he was just waiting for an excuse to put down that old fuck. Still, his contributions had been useless, and that was why he had avoided it for so long. And he was down to just eight Espada now, with the Zero Division looming closer. Hopefully he didn't lose any more before he had to fight them.

"That delayed me a little more than it should have; I need to find the other old fuck I'm supposed to kill..." Naruto commented, leaving the scene where he had fought Baraggan.

* * *

"Ehhhh, what's with this crap? I didn't know a dog could be a Captain. That's weird..." Yammy babbled to himself. Komamura stood there in silent fury as his Bankai fought with the giant Arrancar.

Komamura swung the hilt of his sword over his head, and his Bankai mimicked his movements. Yammy adopted a look of confusion on his face, as the giant armor swung its massive blade down on Yammy's head.

Yammy clapped his hands together over the blade. The blade created a shallow wound on Yammy's forehead, but the Décima was more than strong enough to mostly stop it in its tracks.

"Did you think that would work?!" Yammy guffawed, throwing off the blade and punching the giant. The giant used its vambraces to block the punch via Komamura's movements.

Komamura growled in anger. Even though he blocked the attack, this Arrancar was apparently strong enough to send his giant skidding back several feet, and he felt himself move back along with it.

Yammy laughed.

"Fucking ant. Just 'cuz you have some giant weapon doesn't mean you'll be able to beat me!"

Yammy opened his mouth incredibly widely, as a Cero formed in his mouth. It was like his unreleased Cero, but to accommodate his size, the beam was far larger, and would definitely destroy at a far greater rate.

Komamura sensed it coming, and he gripped his sword with two hands. The giant once again mimicked his movements, and as Yammy fired the Cero, Komamura's giant cut through the energy easily, parting them like water as they harmlessly missed the giant Bankai.

Yammy raised one of his many, many legs to kick the Bankai, but Komamura was quicker. He sliced the leg at a vertical angle, lopping off the large appendage and unbalancing Yammy slightly. However, there were many more legs where that came from.

"You insect!"

At this point, Yammy stopped trying to fight with Komamura's giant, and instead went straight for Komamura himself, trying to stomp him out of his existence.

He brought his foot down on the Seventh Division's Captain, and at first it seemed like Komamura had died. Yammy was left perplexed when he felt Komamura struggling underneath his foot, using his great strength to pry off the giant Espada.

Yammy grunted as Komamura lifted_ him_ off the ground completely and _threw_ him. His massive weight was enough that he wasn't thrown far, but he landed with a thud and destroyed several alleys and almost crushed a few Shinigami.

All around the Seireitei, it seemed like a massive earthquake hit all the Shinigami at once. Even some of the other Captains and Espada paused when the giant Arrancar flopped onto the ground.

Komamura didn't waste any time in exploiting the opening that was created when Yammy went down. He gripped the hilt of his Zanpakutou, and his giant Bankai did the same thing with its giant blade.

He slashed down as if he were an executioner carrying out punishment, aiming for Yammy's thick neck. Yammy's eyes snapped open at the right moment, and he pounded his fists together, catching the blade in its tracks.

He was getting angrier from the resistance, and there was a barely noticeable change in appearance. His muscles were slightly larger in fact.

He pushed upwards, slowly shifting his legs out to sweep the giant's feet. The giant stumbled in place, and Yammy used the opportunity to push on the giant blade.

The blade flew out of the giant's hand, and in turn the hilt flew out of Komamura's hand. Unarmed, the giant was no match for Yammy, and even the unintelligent Arrancar knew this.

A giant grin split onto Yammy's face, and he shot his giant fist out. The giant Bankai was far too slow to outmanuever it, and even though Yammy's fist was slow, there was enough force behind to nearly cave the giant's face in.

As far as Komamura was concerned, he felt it as well. Whatever damage was done to the giant was done to him as well, and he could feel blood leaking from his nose and mouth as he skidded in place along the ground.

_Him_, getting outclassed in strength? That didn't make any sense.

"Taichou!"

Komamura looked over to the side, and he recognized about a dozen members of his own division standing not too far from where he had skidded towards. They were apparently rushing someplace, but with his Bankai and the Arrancar in the way and causing such destruction they couldn't really get to their destination.

"What are you all doing?! Seireitei is under attack!" Komamura scolded. He knew that it probably wasn't their fault, but in a time of crisis, he couldn't really afford to be so fair.

The Shinigami recruits seemed nervous or afraid from his words, and they didn't say anything. They kept looking at the destroyed streets and giant fighters that loomed in front of them.

"We'll back you up, Komamura-taichou!" one brave Shinigami said, putting his hand on his Zanpakutou. A bead of sweat was rolling down his face as he kept glancing at Yammy, so it was obvious he really didn't want to back up Komamura.

"No! You can't! This is an Espada! None of you will be a match for him, and I can't fight while protecting you! There are other, low-level Arrancar that are terrorizing Seireitei at the moment. If anything, engage them in combat!" Komamura ordered.

"Huh? What are you doing over here? And what's with all the weak bugs!?" Yammy asked, scratching his head as he noticed them all standing far away from him.

He raised his club-like tail as Komamura shouted to his division members.

"Get out of here! Go now!" he roared.

It was too late.

Yammy swung his large tail around, catching the dozen or so Seventh Division members from the size. A few of them were unlucky enough to be hit by the club like part of tail. The members were knocked back, and several of them died on impact.

Now, Komamura was angrier than ever.

Using his fairly weak Shunpo, he flashed over to where the hilt of his sword had fallen, snatching it up quickly as his giant Bankai retrieved its own sword. Not wasting any time, he slashed upwards and then downwards in a series of quick strikes.

The attack created a large gash diagonally down from Yammy's shoulder, and it had also cracked his mask. Yammy wheezed and howled in pain, cursing at Komamura as he did so.

He glowed with an angry red reiatsu, and his muscles bulged again.

"You fucking insect! Don't you know by now? Your pathetic attempts at attacking will only make me angrier, and the angrier I get, the more powerful I become. Don't think that you're even a match for me!"

The reiatsu was like a blanket, and Yammy released a punch far more devastating than normal onto Komamura's Bankai...

* * *

Naruto pulled out the two keys that he had gathered.

Baraggan had done well, even if he did rebel against him in the longrun. He managed to kill a Captain and provide him enough to grab the keys. The other Espada had probably at least grabbed a few of them, but for now, he had to go find Yamamoto.

He had studied Yamamoto's file extensively, pouring over every single detail. He knew the old Shinigami's personality, combat abilities, and intelligence, as well as anything else he was capable of.

He had already covered a lot of ground, making his way to the First Division barracks and offices high above the rest of Seireitei. At his vantage point on the scaffolding high above, he could see the destruction that his forces were wreaking all over Seireitei. It was a beautiful sight.

He leaned over the balcony for a moment, sighing wistfully. He rolled his eyes over to the left when he heard several swords being unsheathed and gripped.

His own sword was still out; he had never put it away after his fight with Baraggan. He half-heartedly twirled it around in his hand, pondering his next course of action.

"Halt! You are under arrest, Arrancar!" a stern voice said.

Naruto closed his eyes in embarrassment. Arrest him? Seriously? He wasn't trying to go for the kill immediately? That's what was wrong with these Shinigami. They had the kill-first attitude when it came to normal Hollows, so why not the Arrancar, who were basically Hollow in disguise. Was it because they looked human?

He laid eyes on the Shinigami who spoke for the first time, and he perked up. There were around eight nameless Shinigami surrounding a decorated Shinigami who was clearly of importance.

"First Division Vice-Captain, Sasakibe Choujirou..." Naruto said, laughing a little bit.

Sasakibe said nothing.

"You're the old fuck's golden boy, right? I know all about how you're Captain level... but you refuse to leave his side out of loyalty..." Naruto remarked. He had of course read the file on Sasakibe as well, as well as the very peculiar relationship he had with his direct superior.

Sasakibe looked a little bothered now; he was obviously wondering how the Arrancar could possibly know that.

"You and Yamamoto are like two peas-in-a-pod. Superior and subordinate; you're a combination that is legendary even in Hueco Mundo. So that means..." he trailed off, and he voice became lower and incredibly dangerous as he fixed all the Shinigami in front of him with a look of pure lunacy, like an Arrancar possessed.

All the Shinigami backed away in fear. All of them, except for Sasakibe.

"That means... if I kill you, the old man will go ballistic, _right_?" Naruto almost shrieked the last part. One of the Shinigami dropped his Zanpakutou out of fright, and Naruto attacked.

His blinding Sonido caught everyone off guard, including Sasakibe. He spun his Zanpakutou around his head almost like a strange dance, and it was so strong it conjured up a gust of wind.

A split-second later, and Naruto was kneeling towards the ground directly behind the group of Shinigami. Eight of them had been slashed through the middle, blood gurgling in their mouths as they dropped their Zanpakutou. They hadn't even seen it coming.

Only Sasakibe had managed to successfully block the attack, his Shikai already activated as he grunted underneath the force of the attack. It had been a long time since anyone had forced him to use his true strength.

"Oh, I guess you would survive that one. You're not prized by the old fucker for nothing, I suppose. Too bad your subordinates didn't seem as highly trained as you..." Naruto mentioned.

"You... you keep spouting off things that should be secret... How do you know all these things?" Sasakibe demanded.

"Oh, you learn a few things after being under the thumb of Aizen Sousuke for so long, but that's not the point. You might as well bring out your Bankai for this..." he flashed forward, and before Sasakibe could even react, he had a blade pointed at his throat.

"You're gonna need it..."

Sasakibe flashed his sword upward, parrying Naruto's blade and almost knocking it out of his hands. Naruto thrust forward as he did so, but Sasakibe escaped with only a minor wound to the neck, which blood trickled down from.

"You fiend, you even know about that..." he said, darting forward with both hands on his blade.

Naruto stepped forward, and in a flashy movement clashed his blade against Sasakibe's recklessly with one hand, throwing his free arm back and with a little flourish parried Sasakibe's sword.

While Sasakibe was recoiling, Naruto clutched his blade and thrust forward with a stab, which caught Sasakibe just barely in the side as he tried to move to the left to avoid it.

Naruto shoved his free hand right into Sasakibe's space, charging up a Cero Venenoso in his hand. Sasakibe could practically taste the acrid feel of it on his face, and he could feel his skin start to peel off from it.

"Bala Rápida..."

The Cero Venenoso disappeared in an instant, and in its place were little blips of light that fired rapidly from the tips of Naruto's index finger. The attack didn't seem to work, but Sasakibe was now well aware of the threat that this Arrancar was.

Naruto clashed blades with him again, and this time he managed to knock his Zanpakutou out of his hand. Following up with a quick thrust, he caught Sasakibe through the stomach.

Sasakibe barely cried out in pain, but he fell back immediately when he realized the danger that he was in. He scooped up his Shikai and didn't waste any time in responding.

"Bankai!"

"Koukou Konryou Rikyuu..."

Sasakibe was surrounded in a cage of lightning bolts which was held together by a dome of lightning. The area around the two fighters became dark as storm clouds entered the vicinity high above. A single bolt of lightning extended from the dome up into the sky.

Naruto hummed thoughtfully.

Sasakibe said nothing, directing his hands. As he did so, a strong bolt of lightning struck Naruto from the sky above, obliterating the bridge they were standing on and splitting it in two.

Sasakibe took refuge on the balcony near the other side, watching the dust settle.

He flinched when the dead body of a Shinigami, one that Naruto had killed earlier, came flying up him out of nowhere. A bolt of lightning struck the body, but it only ended up charring it as it broke the barrier and collided with him.

Sasakibe pushed it out of the way and regained his vision, but it was all too late.

"Too easy..." Naruto said. He had penetrated his barrier, and it was clear that he had used the body to shield himself from the lightning attack that he had wrought.

His sword was sheathed however, but there was energy being charged in his hand.

"Rayo Bala..."

He fired the orange laser through Sasakibe's shoulder, and didn't waste time in creating another one. While Sasakibe was stuck in recoil from the injury, he used the opportunity to puncture Sasakibe's body with no less than a dozen holes, each of them created from a flurry of Rayo Bala.

"Fucking stubborn..." Naruto commented, as the twelve shots didn't fall. However, Sasakibe was reaching his limit. He grit his teeth as blood fell from his mouth, and Naruto charged up one last Rayo Bala.

The last thing he saw was a grinning Naruto, as the Arrancar fired a thirteenth and fatal shot straight through the Vice-Captain's heart...

* * *

_In Hueco Mundo..._

Silence.

Ichigo was beginning to get uncomfortable. All of the people in front of him were clearly just staring out into space, their eyes glossy in disbelief. He could practically feel the despair that was washing off of them.

Some of the Shinigami in the back were murmuring to themselves, clearly not aware of who this Naruto person was. But Ichigo was talking to people such as Namikaze Minato, Uzumaki Kushina, Jiraiya, and the friends that Naruto had made when he was alive.

And they knew _exactly_ who Naruto was.

"I-I don't believe it..." Jiraiya was the one to break the silence.

"N-N-No..." Hinata managed to squeak out. Her pupilless eyes were beginning to water profusely.

All of the anger had been sucked out of the main group of the Konoha Association, and it had been replaced with utter despair. Nowhere was this more apparent than on the faces of Minato and Kushina themselves.

Kushina was shaking violently now, and she felt sick to her stomach. Her knees wobbled, and she almost fell to the ground, but Minato caught her and wrapped an arm around her shoulder, pulling her close.

Regardless of what they were feeling now, this proved nothing. They needed more information, and perhaps Ichigo could answer more of their questions.

"N-Naruto, you say?" Minato began. He tried to keep his cool, but it clearly wasn't working at all. His voice made a noticeable crack as he spoke, and it was far raspier than normal.

"D-Do you have any more information about that? Or do you just know the name?"

Ichigo looked confused.

"Uh, all I know is what this girl said once she came out of the trapdoor, though it was tough to piece together. Apparently, this "Naruto" had put her and the rest of her village down there, and basically tortured them for over a century. If you want more information regarding "Naruto", all I know is that he was apparently an Arrancar, if what her ramblings were anything to go by. She also mentioned that Naruto himself also came from her village. You're from there. Do you know anything about him?" It was Ichigo's turn to ask the questions.

That only confirmed what they had been dreading, and each of the members of the association felt their hearts drop into their stomachs. It became clear to them that it was Uzumaki Naruto himself who had done such a horrible thing, but worst of all... Uzumaki Naruto was a Hollow.

"Yeah... I know him." That was all Minato had to say on the subject. He was beginning to get dizzy, and he could still hear Ichigo's words ringing in his head.

"How?" Shikamaru spoke up. Even he was shaken by the news.

"Naruto, _THE_ Naruto is a Hollow?! And _he's _the one who destroyed Konoha?! How is he a Hollow?! How did he not reach Soul Society?! He should be right here, with all of us! But instead we lost him to the Hollow, and this has happened! This... this is so fucked up!" Jiraiya boisterously vocalized. That was truly what they were all thinking at the moment.

"What do we do, Minato?" Tsunade asked. The leader of the Konoha Association shook his head, pulling Kushina closer to him.

"It pains me to say this, but we're going to have to continue on and search for Naruto. No matter our feelings on the subject, he did a horrible thing to our village. He is Vulpes C, and he is an enemy to Soul Society..."

Hinata was openly crying now, and Naruto's other friends from life were staring at the floor, finding the ground particularly interesting as they didn't say anything.

"We will find Naruto... and we will confront him about this incident..." Minato said. His voice wavered slightly, and a resonation flashed through the crowd as Minato turned back towards Ichigo.

"Ichigo-san, do you know where Naruto possibly is now?" Minato asked.

Ichigo rubbed his chin.

"We've been here ten years, so you can imagine that we've traveled through a great deal of Hueco Mundo. We've seen a few Hollow kingdoms, but we have heard his name being whispered in the darkest corners of Hollow colonies. He's dreaded around here, clearly. But there is one thing that always pops up..." he trailed off, building suspense within the minds of the Konoha Association.

"To the east... that is what is always said with regards to him. To the east, to the east. Hollows more often than not travel to the east. If you want to find him, then you should travel east, and ask a true Hollow for more information. The Hollows around here know more about his legend than I do..."

"I see. Thank you..." Minato said somberly. He turned back to his sensei, his wife, and his son's former friends.

"Alright, let's go. We don't have time to waste..." he turned back to Ichigo.

"Would you like to go back with us? I'd imagine neither of you want to spend the rest of your lives in Hueco Mundo..." Minato offered. Ichigo and Orihime looked at each other, and Minato offered a hand to Ichigo.

Ichigo took it.

* * *

Okay, we're done here. It turned out not as long as I figured, but it'll do. The next chapter will likely be longer, so look forward to that.

**Translations and Other Features**

Bala Rápida: Rapid Bala

Renacimiento: Rebirth

Caja del Tiempo: Time Box

Koukou Konryou Rikyuu: Yellow-Glittering Royal Villa of the Stern Spirit

**Current Espada**

1st: Naruto Uzumaki

2nd: Ulquiorra Cifer

3rd: Coyote Starrk

4th: Baraggan Louisenbairn (deceased)

5th: Tia Harribel

6th: Nnoitra Gilga

7th: Grimmjow Jeagerjaquez

8th: Zommari Rureaux

9th: Szayel Aporro Granz (deceased)

10th: Yammy Llargo

**Konoha Association**

Namikaze Minato: 5th Division Captain

Uzumaki Kushina: 3rd Division Captain

Jiraiya: 9th Division Captain

Hatake Kakashi: 5th Division Vice-Captain (deceased)

Rin: 3rd Division Vice-Captain (Captain level)

Tsunade: 4th Division Vice-Captain (Captain level)

Sarutobi Hiruzen: Visored

Hyuuga Hinata: 13th Division Vice-Captain (above Vice-Captain level)

Nara Shikamaru: 8th Division 3rd Seat (above Vice-Captain level)

Inuzuka Kiba: 7th Division 4th Seat (Vice-Captain level)

Hyuuga Neji: 6th Division 3rd Seat (above Vice-Captain level)

Yamanaka Ino: 10th Division 3rd Seat (Vice-Captain level)

Later,

**_Alban55_**


	54. El Dios Viaje

So, something recently happened that's really unbelievable. I'm super flattered right now when I learned about this particular thing. You see, Amenaza has its own TvTropes page now. Not just recommended, but its own page.

Now, it's not necessarily uncommon to have a lot of reviews, nor is it uncommon to be recommended on that site. But to have your own page there is extremely rare, and I don't know what to say...

Still, it's pretty blank right now, at least at the time of me writing this. Hopefully it gets more filled out in the future.

* * *

Chapter 54: El Dios Viaje

Even in the face of such danger, Yamamoto Genryuusai-Shigekuni remained a stern, steadfast spirit. He wasn't at his desk any longer, but was now standing directly on his balcony, overlooking the pure chaos ahead.

He had not taken action. All he had done was give out orders to the Captains of Soul Society. They would lead their divisions in a counterattack, but right now it didn't seem like it was working. He had already felt the reiatsu of several of his Captains disappear, and the Konoha Association was not back yet.

Yamamoto's mind turned. The departure of the Konoha Association and the arrival of this Hollow army seemed too grandiose to be coincidence. What were the odds that as soon as dozens of his best Shinigami go on leave, the largest force Soul Society has ever faced appears?

Either those Shinigami from Konoha had another agenda, which seemed highly unlikely, or this was all staged from the beginning by the Hollow force, who hand-picked the exact moment they were gone to strike.

If the latter was true, then how were stupid beasts such as Hollow able to coordinate such a plan? Yamamoto knew how. It meant... someone in Soul Society was a traitor.

His eyes were locked on a portion of Soul Society. A massive blue Cero had just been fired from an avenue in Seireitei far away from his position. It was much more powerful than a normal Cero.

Yamamoto banged his stick against the ground; this had gone on long enough. He needed to take action, for two particular reasons. One, to rid Soul Society of the ryoka. And two, to scold his forces for daring to lose.

He banged his staff against the ground.

"What do you want?"

He could tell; of course he could tell. The reiatsu near him was as bloodthirsty as could possibly be. Someone, most likely an Arrancar by the looks of things, had infiltrated his office.

There was a crash, and a gust of wind. A limp body crashed into the railing directly next to Yamamoto, flopping to the ground in an unnatural position. Clearly a corpse.

When Yamamoto took one look at the face of the corpse, he nearly snapped the wooden end of his staff clean in two. The neat silver hair and mustache, the pale eyes that looked even paler than normal now that they were glossed over... It was his Vice-Captain of a thousand years, Sasakibe Choujirou.

He didn't shout or curse. In fact, he didn't say _anything. _Out of the corner of his eye, he could see a figure standing casually near the door to his office. At that distance, it was clear who had thrown Sasakibe's body.

He turned around slowly, taking in the appearance of the intruder.

He was a short, blond-haired Arrancar, rather young looking. If he were a denizen of his Soul Society, he would appear as little more than a child.

Yet, Yamamoto knew better. Beneath that appearance was a true Hollow, a beast that had spent dozens, if not hundreds of years devouring souls. Yet, the thing he was carrying over his shoulder...

Yamamoto's eyes widened in alarm, as he threw the clearly large weight he had slung over shoulder towards the Captain-Commander. It flopped like a ragdoll in mid-air, hitting the rails of the balcony and hanging over it.

It was Sasakibe... his Vice-Captain, and the man who had sworn to protect him until the day he died. The one Yamamoto had personally tutored and taken under his wing.

"He used his Bankai... but it wasn't anything impressive..." the loathsome Arrancar commented. "He stood in front of me without any fear, but when I told him I knew about his Bankai he went nuts. And then..." he gasped for breath.

"I killed him..."

The second, no... the millisecond Naruto had said those things, Yamamoto's staff disintegrated into ash, the top half of his Shinigami robe burned away and he was left clutching a normal katana with a black hilt.

"Turn everything to ash, Ryuujin Jakka!"

He wasted no time. Naruto was impressed.

Flames consumed the entire balcony, and Naruto was already beginning to breathe slightest heavier due to the suffocating reiatsu that engulfed the surrounding atmosphere. Deep within his old, blackened heart, he felt the sort of primal, animalistic fear that emerges when staring down an apex predator.

And it _exhilarated _him.

Naruto focused his reiatsu, and released it _all._ Every single drop of reiatsu within his system was put into the spiritual pressure he made, to the point of him forcing it out.

"Wow..." Naruto said in a rare moment of awe. His full reiatsu was a powerful orange tornado that would choke the life out of anything it touched, a tempest that would bore through anything.

And yet, even it was not comparable to the power of Yamamoto's Zanpakutou.

Naruto smiled. The old man would be _so _fun to kill.

In the back of his mind, he could feel all the reiatsu around Seireitei. All the members of his Arrancar army, and all the Shinigami. The battle had almost ceased, and he knew the reason why. They could feel... no, they knew down to their very souls what was going on. They could see the inferno and tornado rise high above the First Division's battle, and it struck fear into all of their hearts.

Naruto knew it, and so he struck.

* * *

Out of all the Espada that were fighting in Seireitei, Grimmjow was the one who was making the most out of the experience. While most of the Espada preferred to at least be subtle in the ways they killed, Grimmjow hopped from roof to roof, gutting Shinigami and generally causing havoc and destruction.

It was safe to say that he was drawing the most attention.

Yet, he hadn't met anyone who was even able to slow him down in the slightest.

He even forgot what he was supposed to be doing.

"Grimmjow-sama!"

Grimmjow halted in his tracks, a look of abject irritation coming onto his face. The rest of the Espada had already sent their Fracción off. As for him, he didn't have anymore, yet this Arrancar was content on following him around. He had already told him to get lost.

"What?!" he turned around, as the young-looking Arrancar following him caught up, breathing heavily and fatigue overtook him. His brown hair was flattened by the headband-like mask on the top of his head.

"W-Wait for me, Grimmjow-sama..."

Grimmjow growled.

"Look... kid. I'm not your commanding Espada, so I don't get why you've been following me around all this time. But this is an invasion of Soul Society! You can't just follow me all day and do nothing here! Go off on your own and kill some Shinigami! If you don't, there's going to be hell to pay once this is over..."

The young Arrancar looked like Grimmjow had just kicked his puppy.

"What's your name anyway, kid?"

"K-Konohamaru..." the Arrancar breathed out.

"Stupid name, kid. That's the kind of name a Shinigami would have. But-" Grimmjow stopped himself when he felt the rising of a certain spiritual pressure. It felt familiar, like the kind he had fought before.

He flashed away, not so gently grabbing Konohamaru and shoving him out of the way as a column of ice appeared directly where the two of them had been standing, freezing the tiles on the street and the surrounding buildings.

Grimmjow appeared on a roof a safe distance from the ice, dropping Konohamaru to the ground with a heavy thud. The other Arrancar scrambled to the edge of the roof, his eyes quivering as he saw the damage the ice caused.

"What... was... _that_?!"

"I've seen that before..." Grimmjow growled. Ice, and a lot of it. Judging by the Captain-level reiatsu he was feeling, and the fact that he had fought an ice-wielding Captain before made it pretty obvious who he was dealing with here.

He closed his eyes, feeling more reiatsu signatures enter within the range of his Pesquisa. They were all small fry, so they were probably just a platoon that was meant to accompany their Captain in neutralizing the Arrancar threat.

Grimmjow growled, and fired a Cero point-blank towards where he sensed the reiatsu.

It was at this point that Grimmjow knew that the average Shinigami was incredibly, unfathomably weak. The fact that his haphazard, errant Cero obliterated four Shinigami like that was proof of it.

I mean, he didn't even _look _as he fired that thing, and it still killed a handful of them.

"Wow, Grimmjow-sama! That was incredible!" Konohamaru exclaimed. Grimmjow grunted; that kid was still here, and he was still being as useless as ever.

"If you're going to stand there and be impressed..." Grimmjow began dangerously, "then why don't you get out there and fight?!" he finished in a near roar to Konohamaru.

Konohamaru flinched at the tone from his superior, and a beat of sweat rolled down his temple.

"Y-Yessir!"

Grimmjow surveyed the scene in front of him.

"Leave that white-haired kid to me. You can't handle him. But make sure to clean up the rest of the trash while I'm busy with him..." Grimmjow ordered, to which Konohamaru saluted.

With his "subordinate" in order, he turned to address the leader of the pack of Shinigami. The white haired kid had changed a little bit over the past decade or so, but was still recognizable even to him. The only key differences were that he looked a little older since, maybe a year or two.

What Grimmjow was concerned about was how his strength had changed. If he was still the same, well, Grimmjow would just walk all over him.

"You. I remember you. You're the stupid kid who somehow made it to Captain-rank. I fought you around a decade ago. Guess you're still alive and kickin' What was your name again? Uh..." Grimmjow snapped his fingers along to his speech, trying to remember.

The Captain glared at him.

"It's the 10th Division Captain, Hitsugaya Toushirou..." he said annoyed. "And I remember you as well. Grimmjow Jeagerjaquez; you were one of the premier Arrancar in Aizen Sousuke's army, but you and the rest of the Arrancar disappeared a decade ago. I never thought you would appear now of all times..."

"Well, what can I say? My boss likes to be thorough..."

"Aizen is dead. We have confirmed it. This "boss" of yours is not Aizen. I know..." Hitsugaya replied.

"Yeah, but it's not any of your business who the boss is, though. No way we'd follow some punk-ass Shinigami longer that we'd have to. That's why Aizen is dead..."

Hitsugaya continued to glare.

"But, that's not important right now. What _is _important right now is this..." Grimmjow trailed off, before he pointed an accusatory finger at Hitsugaya. "_You_ better give me a good fight here; none of that bullshit from last time. So you better have gotten way stronger since then, or else I'm gonna mop the floor with ya..."

He felt the cold chill of Hitsugaya's reiatsu. It was definitely heavier than it was last time, and it carried an air of much more experience and maturity that came along with age.

By all means, Grimmjow should've been intimidated... but he wasn't. Instead, he smiled a wide grin, characteristic of a battle seeker like him.

"Impressive, kid. This reiatsu is way better than last time. It looks like we'll be able to have a much better fight. Still, there's no fucking way you're any match for me!"

"Hitsugaya-taichou!" one of Hitsugaya's shoulders called out, as Grimmjow released his own reiatsu. HItsugaya narrowed his eyes a little, but otherwise showed no indication that he was intimidated.

"Fall back. You'll only get in my way. This is clearly one of the lead Arrancars and an ex-Espada, and something only a Captain can handle. You are all to split into two groups, and lend support wherever necessary while neutralizing the Arrancar threat..." he ordered to his soldiers.

Grimmjow had his own set of orders, however.

"Kid! Don't let any of those weak fuckers leave! Slaughter them all!" he barked to Konohamaru.

"You got it, Grimmjow-sama!" Konohamaru said cheerfully, as if he _wasn't_ about to slaughter a bunch of Shinigami. His index finger flew to his waist, wrapping under a loop that formed as the hilt and guard of his Zanpakutou.

He hoisted it out with one finger, holding its point down.

"Shriek, Chimpancé!"

The Shinigami cringed as Konohamaru's reiatsu spiked. In a whirl of green reiatsu that almost looked like a torrent of leaves, his appearance changed. His body shifted and became beefy and ripped, while bony material appeared on his head, giving off the appearance of a war helmet. His teeth lengthened into brutal looking fangs, while the same material covered his chest and shoulders.

A long brown tail sprouted from his backside, whipping around in the wind. And finally, his posture hunched over as he began to knuckle walk, growling ever so slightly.

The Shinigami seemed to be at a complete loss as to what to do, until Konohamaru gave off an ear-splitting shriek and began pounding his chest with his enormous fists.

Grimmjow actually looked slightly impressed.

"Well, I've gotta hand to you, kid. You've at least got the fear part of being an Arrancar down..."

Meanwhile, it looked like Hitsugaya just realized that he was about to lose dozens of his own men.

"Stand your ground! Do not let that Arrancar intimidate you!"

Too late.

With a fierce roar, Konohamaru moved at a speed that a big body like his shouldn't be allowed to move out. He broke right into the middle of the line of Shinigami, just as they had pulled their swords from their sheathes.

Konohamaru's sword release seemed to be all about brute strength, and he showed it when he shot forth with a lightning fast punch towards the nearest Shinigami.

The enormous fist impacted the woman's head, which flew clean off her shoulders and rocketed thirty feet in the opposite direction. The other Shinigami gaped in alarm at his sheer power, and they fearfully backed up.

"Hey, you guys-" HItsugaya started, but he sensed movement from Grimmjow, and brought his blade up to block it. Ice shot out from the contact between two swords, but Grimmjow was undeterred.

"You don't have time to worry about your lackeys, kid! Just focus on me, or your reflexes will slow down and you'll get yourself killed!" Grimmjow lectured.

The two combatants backed up, and Grimmjow tossed his Zanpakutou back and forth between each hand. He rushed at Hitsugaya recklessly, sword extended.

"Hyourinmaru!" Hitsugaya called out, summoning his already activated Shikai. The dragon of ice wiggled its way onto the battlefield, opening its mouth and roaring. Grimmjow didn't pay it any mind.

The ice dragon collided with the Arrancar, bathing him in the frigid substance. Despite that, it only froze him solid for a couple of seconds, and by that time he had already broken free and was rushing at Hitsugaya once again.

"What is this? Do you honestly think you can even slow me down with just your Shikai?! Stop being such a bitch and use your Bankai already!" Grimmjow shouted, smashing his blade recklessly down on Hitsugaya, with no regard for defense.

Physically, Grimmjow was far stronger than the young Hitsugaya, and the Captain could tell that Grimmjow could almost snap his blade clean in half with the amount of force he was providing, and the little amount of resistance that he himself was giving.

He heard more cries of agony from beside him, but he couldn't even think of faltering and glancing over his shoulder with the type of pressure he was under.

"Just so you know, I happened to have regained my status as an Espada. Séptima Espada, Grimmjow Jeagerjaquez! I'm way different from last time, when I had just one arm and couldn't even release my Zanpakutou!" Grimmjow cried.

"Release!?" Hitsugaya called out, not readily equipped to want to deal with an Espada's sword release at the moment.

Grimmjow held out his Zanpakutou, scraping his fingernails against the edge of the blade. Hitsugaya was prepared to stop the ritual by any means necessary.

"I won't let you!" Hitsugaya shouted. "Bankai! Daiguren Hyourinmaru!"

Ice materialized on Hitsugaya in the form of wings and talons, making him the visage of a miniature looking dragon. The air around them chilled, and Grimmjow almost felt his skin freeze upon contact from the heavy reiatsu.

"Just kidding!" Grimmjow guffawed, stopping his pre-Zanpakutou release ritual as Hitsugaya flapped his icy wings and soared towards the Arrancar. He sidestepped the thrust from Hitsugaya, as ice crashed forward towards where Hitsugaya stabbed.

He held his sword with two hands, going in with his own thrust as he attempted to chip away at Hitsugaya's wing. The ice folded over itself, and Grimmjow's Zanpakutou only made a slight dent in the ice.

Hitsugaya tried to sweep right through him with his sword, but Grimmjow was faster. He used Sonido to get away from the swipe, but Hitsugaya was hot on his tail with Shunpo.

The two engaged in a fast-paced sword battle in mid-air, both of them taking quick and agile jabs at each other. But as the fight went on, it became apparent to Grimmjow that he wasn't able to keep up with Hitsugaya like this.

"Whoa!" Grimmjow cried out, as Hitsugaya swung his tail like a pike. Grimmjow knew already that this ice was strong enough to freeze him solid, unlike the ice that he was using with his Shikai.

Hitsugaya swung his tail once again, and Grimmjow back-flipped over the Captain, coming down to kneel upon the tiled ground. There were a few beads of sweat rolling down his face.

The Séptima whistled.

"Those wings of yours are bigger than last time, and those ice flowers are gone too. I suppose you've worked on your fighting abilities; that timer for you Bankai doesn't exist any more... meaning you can keep that Bankai out without a time limit..."

Hitsugaya floated onto the ground, a stoic look on his face.

At that same moment, three Shinigami came flying over, almost bowling over the young-looking Captain as they sailed between the two combatants. Their bodies were bruised and bloodied.

Hitsugaya gasped.

"What is going on here? Don't tell me you guys are having _that_ much trouble with _one _Arrancar!" he cried out. The three Shinigami couldn't answer for two reasons. One, they were gurgling up too much blood to be understandable.

And two, there was currently a large shadow underneath them, rapidly getting bigger.

The Shinigami screamed as a big monkey Arrancar fell on top of them, crushing them into paste and making a giant crater in the ground. Konohamaru shrieked and beat his chest, motivated over his victory.

"Impressive, kid! You're not as big of a bitch as I thought!" said Grimmjow to Konohamaru. Hitsugaya wasn't impressed however, but it was in that where Grimmjow saw the biggest opening.

"You don't have time to focus on him!" Grimmjow said, crashing his blade down on Hitsugaya's shoulder and chipping off a big portion of the ice. Hitsugaya had been trying to take out Konohamaru in the meantime before he could do anymore damage, but clearly Grimmjow wasn't about to let that happen.

"You shouldn't pick on the small fry; they don't really like that much! Hey kid... let 'im have it!" he shouted at Konohamaru. Konohamaru noticed that the Captain was locked in combat with Grimmjow and currently occupied, so he took advantage of the situation.

Like always, he used his physical power to try to flatten Hitsugaya. However, the young Captain outstretched a wing that managed to hold up against Konohamaru's strength, while simultaneously parrying both Konohamaru and Grimmjow.

Grimmjow managed to avoid the strike, but Konohamaru wasn't so lucky. Hitsugaya's Bankai caught his left side, freezing his ribs and rendering him immobile.

Grimmjow grit his teeth angrily, but otherwise didn't say anything. He realized that Konohamaru was near useless now though, so he wouldn't bother trying to get him in on the fight.

At that moment, something happened which made Grimmjow realize that he needed to stop messing around. All of a sudden, it felt much harder to breathe. His lungs burned, like he had inhaled hot ash.

That wasn't what was concerning him though. It was what happened just a second after that. A familiar _crushing_ reiatsu that could be felt within the very atmosphere itself arose. It was like a tempest, and it was suffocating.

And it was clashing with the heat, fighting it. With both of them together, it was almost maddening, even to an Espada like him. He could even see it from his vantage point. How couldn't he; everyone could see it.

The scorching hellfire and the whirling tornado that rose high above Soul Society in the First Division's barracks. It was awe-inspiring, but it also was sending a message.

Naruto was starting...

He winced and grinned, looking over at Hitsugaya. He could tell that the Captain was barely capable of keeping his Bankai active within the current heat, but it wasn't the heat he wasn't concerned about. It was the strong, foreign reiatsu.

"What is this? One of these is without a doubt, Yamamoto-soutaichou's reiatsu... but this other one. I don't know..." he muttered to himself. Grimmjow raised his sword.

"Sorry, kid. The fact that we're feeling this means that my boss has started fighting with your boss. He's done fuckin' around, so we're gonna have to speed this up, okay..." he trailed off.

"Right now, all I need is your key..."

* * *

Back in Hueco Mundo, Ichigo had joined up with the Konoha Association, and they had been traveling east for quite some time now. That's what Ichigo had said to do anyway.

There was a glum atmosphere that pervaded throughout the group, particularly in the upper echelons of the Association. The truth about Naruto still stung with all of them, and Ichigo didn't want to intrude.

As they continued to move east, the party sans Ichigo and Orihime were surprised to see the sandy deserts of Hueco Mundo turn into grassy fields. The night sky still hung perpetually overhead, but this place actually looked remarkably like the human world or Rukongai.

Ichigo kept stealing glances at Minato every once in a while. He hadn't said a word since they had left the palace. Few people have, but there was something about Minato that seemed... far more contemplative.

"He's my son, you know..." Minato said finally, after he noticed for the third time that Ichigo was staring at him. Ichigo felt like a rock had just dropped into his stomach.

"Y-Your son? Who is?" he asked, but he already knew the answer. Minato smiled at him like nothing was wrong, but Ichigo could tell immediately that _everything_ was wrong.

"Naruto is..." he croaked.

Ichigo swallowed.

"...That Hollow? The person you've been searching for all this time... and the one you just found out did all those things?"

Minato nodded.

"I-I'm... so sorry... I had no idea..."

"Don't apologize. In hindsight, we should've figured it out years ago. Why... why did we not find him... when we had all the tools of Soul Society at our disposal. Why... did we not find him after decades and decades of searching..." Minato barked out a humorless laugh.

"...Now it all makes sense," he finished.

"Minato-san..."

"Let's just keep moving," he said, changing the subject. "We need to move east quickly, and find him. He is our responsibility, and we will personally put a stop to his madness..."

"It w-wasn't supposed to be like this..." he heard Kushina pipe up from behind in the crowd a little. A realization dawned on Ichigo. She was Minato's wife, and had been for as long as he knew... so that meant that she must've been Naruto's mother.

"It's not just that... we all knew him too."

Ichigo turned around, to see Inuzuka Kiba walking glumly alongside his group of friends. The normally spirited Shinigami was looking as glum as everyone else.

"Me, Hinata, Shikamaru, Ino, Neji. We all knew him when we were alive; we were... friends. Some of us grew up together at the ninja academy when we were just kids. He loved Konoha. The idea that Naruto would become a Hollow and eventually destroy the village he once loved is... hard to stomach."

"Kiba... don't talk about him right now..." Neji said sternly. Kiba read the situation; Hinata was sniffling, and the overall atmosphere of the group became even worse.

Fortunately, something came along to distract the group for a while. A small gopher-like Hollow emerged from the ground, looked around before spotting the Shinigami, yelped in alarm, and attempted to burrow back underground.

Minato turned to Jiraiya, who nodded to his student.

Quick as a flash, he snatched up the gopher Hollow from the ground, holding it aloft as it squirmed. Its little strength was useless though, and it hung limply in Jiraiya's arm, awaiting its fate.

"Hold it right there!"

The gopher Hollow turned around cautiously, to see Jiraiya leering at him in a comical, exaggerated angry face. The gopher Hollow gaped underneath its mask.

"I'd like to ask you a few questions if you don't mind..."

"Hm! Like I got anythin' to say to a bunch a bitch-ass Shinigami! Go screw yourself!" the loud-mouthed gopher exclaimed, suddenly overcome by a dose of bravery. Jiraiya grinned evilly, before bringing down his knuckles on the poor Hollow's head.

He noogied him roughly for a moment or two, the gopher Hollow giving horrible shrieks and cries before it finally gave in.

"Alright! Alright! What do you want from me?!" the gopher whined, rubbing its mask for a couple seconds. At that point, Jiraiya turned all serious.

"We're looking for a Hollow by the name of Vulpes C. In these parts, you'd probably recognize him by the name "Naruto". Do you know anything about him?" Jiraiya asked.

The gopher's masked face took on an expression of absolute terror, much more than Jiraiya was capable of doing with a simple noogie. The main members of the Konoha Association huddled around him.

"N-Naruto?" the gopher Hollow squeaked.

"Looks like we've got a keeper..." Jiraiya sighed, allowing the little Hollow to continue.

"Y-Yeah... I know 'im alright! Hard not too around these parts, with the things he's accomplished... And I know I'm not supposed to be helpin' Shinigami and whatnot, but as far as I'm concerned, there's no enemies when it comes to deal with that _creature._ Just... stay away from 'im. F-For your own sakes..."

That was not the answer that anyone in the Konoha Association had been expecting.

"What we do with ourselves is none of your business, Hollow. Just tell me, where can we find him?" Jiraiya asked coldly. The gopher Hollow's eyes became glossy and apathetic.

"If you insist... I'll tell you where to find him. Continue heading east until about forty miles from the ocean. You should come across a great canyon, larger than anything you would see in Soul Society. That is Naruto's encampment. He should be there..."

"Ocean?" Jiraiya inquired. Since when was there an ocean with Hueco Mundo. Nevertheless, as they traveled farther into it, it was apparent that there were plants there, but...

They would save the inquiries over the landscape of Hueco Mundo later. For now, they needed to move.

Jiraiya threw away the gopher Hollow none too gently, and it landed dazed in the dirt as the company moved on. They passed through fields of tall grass and light forests, and it was Minato who saw the large, scraping canyon that stretched across the landscape like a landmark.

"There it is..." Minato said, with an air of finality.

"We're here..." Kushina added. "And somewhere down there... we'll find Naruto..." she finished, tears welling into her eyes. Minato nodded at his wife.

"Let's put an end to this..."

"Wait, Kushina... Everyone, look over there!" Minato said, as his eyes were drawn to what sat on the right edge of the canyon.

The Konoha Association swiveled their heads over to the right, perplexed at what they were seeing. It sort of like like a... village, maybe? No, that wasn't right. The correct word for it would probably be outpost, but nonetheless it was still more advanced than anything they had seen in Hueco Mundo, save Las Noches of course.

"A... village?" Hinata echoed. There were a few dozen tents set up along the outpost, as well as a massive longhall in the center. She did notice a few Hollow moving around the outpost, and they weren't normal Hollows either. They were mostly Adjuchas.

"Adjuchas... and a lot of them," remarked Jiraiya. "Maybe we should check out that outpost first?"

"That sounds like a sound plan. But I will go alone on this one. We need information, and I think it's about time to employ some of my old ninja skills. The rest of you bunker down here and wait for me to return..." he said to his friends. They would be sure to relay that information to the rest of the group.

With the Konoha Association hunkered down, Minato crept closer to the village. When he was a good enough distance to actually comprehend what was going on, he realized that this group was up to something.

"What are they up to?"

He snuck up into the village when there were no Hollows in the immediate vicinity, sliding his back against the longhall behind a few barrels that concealed him.

He peered inside the window; there were a few regular Hollows sitting at the big table talking to a... Vasto Lorde. Disregarding the extremely high-level Hollow, this should hold some information.

"The invasion..." Minato heard one of the Hollows say, as a little snippet of the conversation going on in there.

"_Invasion?"_

"The second wave of attack is to begin shortly. We have to be prepared... once Seireitei has been cleaned up by the Espada, we will be brought into to the main event and the battle with the Royal Guard..."

Minato's eyes widened. Second wave? Invasion? Seireitei? Did this mean that Soul Society was under attack right now while the Konoha Association twiddled their thumbs in Hueco Mundo.

There was no way this was a coincidence. Seireitei was rarely ever invaded, let alone by an attack force of Hollows. How would occur at the same exact time that the Konoha Association was in Hueco Mundo, and the two forces would miss each other?

Someone had set them up.

"I need to let the others know about this immediately!" he whispered to himself.

"Hey... why don't you stop sneaking around and come inside. We don't bite... much..."

Minato's breath hitched in his throat at the voice that came from right beside him. He hadn't even sensed any reiatsu spike, but how could he have been snuck up on so easily?

He tilted his head over to the side; it was the Hollow from inside. The Vasto Lorde that was apparently getting briefed.

As quietly as he could, he rose to his feet, gripping his Zanpakutou as he glared at the Vasto Lorde. It didn't even flinch, and just remained there with a bored expression on its mask.

"Who are you? What was that conversation about?!" he demanded.

The Hollow, which was a grey humanoid with six spikes encircling his shoulders, spoke.

"My name is Valicav. I suppose you can call me the Reserve General in the Arrancar army. I'm in charge of holding down the homefront while the Espada are away. And you... should not be here..."

"That doesn't answer my question with regards to that conversation! What are you planning?" Minato demanded yet again. He was shouting now, and a multitude of Hollow and Arrancar were crowding around the two of them, hissing at the Shinigami menacingly.

Valicav simply waved an arm, and they all backed off and fell silent. The old Vasto Lorde regarded him with a strange look, but there was no hostility behind that gaze.

"Unfortunately, at this point there is nothing we can do. I know who you are, and I know that you are vital to this operation. Naruto wants you alive after all..."

Minato perked up at this.

"Naruto?! I knew it! He is here! Where is he?!" Minato shouted.

Valicav sighed.

"You don't get it, do you?" he said lightly. "Your son's a monster, Namikaze Minato. There's no getting around that, and right now he's currently making a crater the size of Iceland out of the Seireitei. And here you are wandering around the Hueco Mundo like a chicken with its head cut off. This wasn't supposed to happen, and now I'm going to have to find a way to fix it..." he paused.

"I told you that you were vital to this operation. Naruto wants you alive, which means that no one here can kill you. And that's why I'm telling you all t his information. Without it, you'd still be lurking around Hueco Mundo in the dark while the operation continues without you. You need to go back to Seireitei..."

Minato obviously didn't take this news very well.

"HE'S WHAT!"

"I'll make it a little simpler right now. Your son is the Primera Espada, and the leader of the most powerful fighting force that exists within Hueco Mundo. Right now, he is leading an attack on your Soul Society, and by all intents and purposes, he should have succeeded by now. And one more thing..." he trailed off.

"He **_despises_** you..."

* * *

Naruto banged his Zanpakutou against Yamamoto's flame-wreathed one with all the force he could muster, his reiatsu oozing out of his pores at full velocity.

And yet, he was still almost incinerated instantly. Yamamoto's Shikai was one of the most powerful things he had ever faced, and it had been a long time before something had exhilarated him this much.

He cackled as a blast of flame pushed him back, searing his flesh. He emerged from the flames with nothing more than a few light burn marks, but it was more than anyone had managed to do in years.

"Amazing! I've never felt _anything_ like this before, not even when I was fighting Aizen!" Naruto shrieked. The old Shinigami simply kept his stony gaze on Naruto, never saying a word.

"Swordsmanship alone will clearly not cut it on a Zanpakutou as strong as yours. I suppose it's time to kick it up a notch..." he guffawed, grinning excitedly as his eyes flashed with madness.

He held his Zanpakutou aloft with his left hand, while he placed his right hand on the face of the blade. Yamamoto watched him stoically, as Naruto began to charge up an orange Cero in his right hand.

However, this Cero was slightly different. As soon as it formed in Naruto's hand, it seemed to take on a liquid-like shape, and to top it all off, it looked like it was being absorbed into Naruto's Zanpakutou.

"Cero Corazón!" he shouted, as his sword began to glow the same orange as one of his Ceros. He swung it, and a wave of orange energy was released from the blade in a trail. Wherever it cut, it created Ceros.

"My second of three unique Ceros. And that's not all..."

Naruto tossed the Cero-charged sword to his right hand, and stuck his left hand out. It glowed with orange reiatsu, but he wasn't forming a Cero. He was manipulating Yamamoto's reiatsu.

"Extintor..."

He pulled his hand, and the flames wreathing Yamamoto moved to create a large opening in the circle of fire. Naruto took the chance. Still controlling the reiatsu to a limited extent, he leaped through the opening and into the blaze, his Zanpakutou at the ready.

"Choque!"

He slammed his Zanpakutou down on Yamamoto, a wave of orange Cero emerging from where the blade swung. Yamamoto brought his own fire up to shield himself against the Cero, but he was forced to skid back to avoid the physical aspect of the blade.

The Arrancar was using a double-layered attack, but it was one that Yamamoto could handle. What was really grinding on Yamamoto's mind was the Arrancar's ability to seize a limited amount of control from his flames.

"Your flames are strong and laden with reiatsu. I can't manipulate them fully, but I have plenty of other tricks up my sleeve..." Naruto shouted. He was still manipulating Yamamoto's reiatsu. The old Captain had still not said anything.

He poured his reiatsu into a finger.

"Rayo Bala!"

The beam of light traveled straight through the flames, but it was meant as little more than a distraction. Yamamoto didn't flinch even as Naruto appeared in his blind spot, the flames parting to let him through via his powers. It was obvious what his intention was.

The old Shinigami shunpoed away from the strike from Naruto, sprouting a geyser of fire where he anticipated Naruto would be one second later. Naruto yelped as he flashed out of the way from the pillar of great fire, charging up a new technique.

He didn't get the chance though, as four more pillars sprung up around me, limiting his movements lest he accidentally spring another one. He managed to slice through one using his high reiatsu and reiatsu manipulation abilities, but more continued to spring up.

Right now, he knew that fighting Yamamoto would be difficult. At this point, he didn't know who would win even if the both of them would all out from the start.

Fortunately, all Naruto had to do was stall him.

And what better way to do that than with a little taunting.

"Bala del Artista!"

His final form of Bala did not charge up any energy in his hands. Rather, seven blips of orange light appeared in the middle of the air, before stretching down towards the ground like spears. All together, they formed a cage.

"What do you think? Looks familiar, don't it?" he taunted. Naruto was manipulating his Balas to make them look like a replica of Sasakibe's Bankai, and when that happened, something within Yamamoto snapped.

"Such disrespect. It must be mortifying for you... Sasakibe. To see your beloved and prized Bankai be used as an imitation by a lowly Arrancar. I feel like I should apologize to you for allowing this to happen..." Yamamoto finally spoke.

Naruto grinned over at him, satisfied over finally provoking a response out of the old Captain, even if it wasn't exactly directed at him. Yamamoto's face was even stonier though. Naruto didn't know what he was up to, until...

"Bankai..." he said stoically, and the assortment of flames disappeared immediately.

"Eh?"

* * *

The life had been completely sucked out of the atmosphere. And Ukitake and Kyouraku both knew it.

"Do you believe this, Kyouraku?" Ukitake asked, from his perch above. He was currently locked in sword combat with Starrk, who finally seemed to realize that he needed to fight.

Ukitake almost seemed to forget about Starrk for a moment.

"You can feel that, right? This sense of dryness... the temperature has risen..." Ukitake commented. Down below, Kyouraku's Shikai was not having much luck with Harribel, who still hadn't released.

"Of course I can feel it..." he said, no smile on his face.

"It's unbelievable... Genryuusai-sensei's Bankai. I expected him to take to the front line, but I never expected him to use his Bankai right now..." Ukitake commented.

"Don't be surprised. We have yet to make any ground against these two Espadas, and they are not even the top-ranked within their group. It's not out of the realm of possibility that they have a true monster at the top. Is that right?" Kyouraku smiled lightly as he addressed Harribel.

"I have nothing to say to that..."

"Yeah, I figured. But if Yama-jii is using his Bankai, it means we can't afford to stand here and take our time with our battles. I'm sorry, but we will have to defeat you immediately..." Kyouraku said casually.

"That won't be necessary..." a new voice commanded.

The two older Captains turned around at the source of the new voice, as a new Arrancar appeared in the middle of the Eighth Division's square.

"Ulquiorra..." Harribel muttered. "If you're here... you have not taken any action throughout the invasion. What have you been doing all this time?"

"Yes. I have been going around the Soul Society secretly during the chaos, fulfilling the mission that we were given. I came to inform the two of you that the preparations are nearly complete. I have collected eleven of the thirteen master keys while the Captains have been busy. Naruto has additionally gained the final two, meaning that we have now acquired the full thirteen. We are ready to begin Phase II of the operation. But as you may have guessed..." he paused for a moment, feeling the hot air on his skin.

"Naruto has taken action. There is one last obstacle to take care of before we proceed. In addition, Szayel and Baraggan have been lost, but we need all the remaining Espada to rendezvous where Naruto is right now. Finish up your fights quickly."

Starrk's expression changed, before he sighed.

"We can do that."

"Wait! The thirteen keys! Your army has been collecting them the whole time! How did you figure out the secret to those keys?" Ukitake shouted at Ulquiorra.

Ulquiorra glared slightly up at him.

"That is not for you to know..."

"And this Phase II... it can't be anything good if you're collecting those keys. But what I don't understand is what you're doing to get to that point..." Kyouraku said, joining the conversation.

Ulquiorra narrowed his eyes at him, but otherwise remained expressionless.

"It's simple. It means that Yamamoto Genryuusai is about to die..."

* * *

Hmm, so it seems I overestimated the word counts of these chapters a little bit. See, we're getting closer and closer to the climax it seems, and with the way I outlined it, it seemed that there would be more to put into these than there actually is. They still will likely be longer than the pre-invasion chapters, but not by as much as double it seems. Once I get to around 8000-9000 words, I start to run out of things to write, and it just drags on.

It makes me glad I merged decided to merge two chapters into one when I was outlining. If I kept the original format, I would likely be having regular chapters that are under 4000 words.

**Translations and Other Features**

Ryuujin Jakka: Flowing Blade-like Flame

Chimpancé: Chimpanzee

Cero Corazón: Heart Cero

Extintor: Extinguisher

Choque: Crash

Bala del Artista: Bala of the Artist

**Current Espada**

1st: Naruto Uzumaki

2nd: Ulquiorra Cifer

3rd: Coyote Starrk

4th: Baraggan Louisenbairn (deceased)

5th: Tier Harribel

6th: Nnoitra Gilga

7th: Grimmjow Jeagerjaquez

8th: Zommari Rureaux

9th: Szayel Aporro Granz (deceased)

10th: Yammy Llargo

**Konoha Association**

Namikaze Minato: 5th Division Captain

Uzumaki Kushina: 3rd Division Captain

Jiraiya: 9th Division Captain

Hatake Kakashi: 5th Division Vice-Captain (deceased)

Rin: 3rd Division Vice-Captain (Captain level)

Tsunade: 4th Division Vice-Captain (Captain level)

Sarutobi Hiruzen: Visored

Hyuuga Hinata: 13th Division Vice-Captain (above Vice-Captain level)

Nara Shikamaru: 8th Division 3rd Seat (above Vice-Captain level)

Inuzuka Kiba: 7th Division 4th Seat (Vice-Captain level)

Hyuuga Neji: 6th Division 3rd Seat (above Vice-Captain level)

Yamanaka Ino: 10th Division 3rd Seat (Vice-Captain level)


	55. Una Máquina de Huecos

Well, shit. I made a mistake... a pretty big one at that. I'm surprised no one caught it, but I guess it would be pretty obscure, and you'd have to study the end notes to get it.

Earlier, in Chapter 52... there was Zommari vs. the Vice-Captains. Now, the Vice-Captains were apparently in a meeting, where only seven of the thirteen showed up. The Vice-Captains were as follows: Renji, Kira, Hisagi, Iba, Hinamori, Rangiku, and Nanao. However, if you studied the Konoha Association chart at the end of every chapter, you'd notice that Rin is the 3rd Division's Vice-Captain, not Kira. Hinamori should have been promoted back up when Kakashi died, but Kira being a Vice-Captain is a mistake. Meaning... the seven Vice-Captains who _actually_ should be there are: Renji, Hisagi, Iba, Hinamori, Rangiku, Nanao, and Omaeda.

I apologize for this, everybody, and will work on fixing this.

* * *

Chapter 55: Una Máquina de Huecos

"Are you sure you want to do this, Sarutobi?" Shinji asked.

The old Visored nodded his head, his back turned to his friend and defacto leader. He wouldn't have called his life since becoming a Visored boring, but he felt obligated. Not so much for the Soul Society, but for the people he knew and loved during his life in Konoha.

"I'm positive. Are you sure I can't change your mind, Shinji? All of you..."

Hiruzen looked around at the other Visored. They all shared solemn looks.

Shinji raised an eyebrow, and then sighed.

"Not a damn chance, Hiruzen. Aizen is dead, so this doesn't have anything to do with us anymore. I'm sorry, but you're gonna hafta fly solo on this one. I know you still have an attachment to that place, what with your friends in life. But we just can't go with you this time..."

Hiruzen nodded.

"I understand..." he said, disappointment wry throughout his voice. Shinji didn't say anything as the old man stepped out of their warehouse hideout, and into the light...

* * *

"Suppress..."

"Brujería!"

A somewhat injured Zommari did not look happy as he was forced to release his Zanpakutou after being ganged up on by seven separate Vice-Captains at once.

In fact, he looked downright livid.

His mouth was turned down into a sneer as he was wrapped in a smoky reiatsu. The seven Vice-Captains tensed and dug their feet into the shingles of the roof as he changed, and his reiatsu got heavier.

"What is this?" Renji asked himself, and while he was perplexed over Zommari's Resurrección, he also took the time to note the other Vice-Captains around. Himself, Hisagi, Hinamori, Rangiku, Omaeda, Kira, and Isane. Those were the Vice-Captains who had decided to attend the meeting, and consequently the ones who were forced to fight the Arrancar.

All in all, not a bad lineup, but for some reason Renji wished he had more.

"What do we do, Renji? We've barely managed to injure, and he's bound to get stronger in his release!" Kira called out from the side. Renji glared over at him.

"I know, okay! We need use all of our strengths at once if we want to stand a chance at defeating this Arrancar. Pour all your reiatsu into your Zanpakutous and be prepared for what's coming next!"

"Eh... I have to work together with you scumbags..." Omaeda Marechiyo piped up from the side. The rest of the group ignored him, as Zommari was just emerging from the smoky reiatsu.

His Resurrección wasn't the most intimidating thing in the world. He look like a man projecting out of a pinkish pumpkin of sorts covered in sets of eyes, but that didn't mean the Vice-Captains left their guards down. They still had no idea what he could do in this state.

He spread his hands apart, and the eyes on his palms and several more on his body began to light up. The seven Vice-Captains tensed, and there was a quick burst of light that they couldn't even react to.

Renji had anticipated that the light wasn't anything good, so he was the only one who was able to react and avoid... whatever it was that Zommari had just fired at them.

The eyes on the Octava's body stayed lit up, their pupils stayed intensely dilated, even as Zommari broke his stance and did not fire off any more bursts of light.

"What happened?" Renji asked, more to his comrades than Zommari. The other six of them looked around at themselves, but they couldn't sense any apparent change.

Zommari smiled an evil smile, before he hissed at them.

"A shame. It has already happened!"

It was at that point that Renji noticed something bizarre. Omaeda... Hinamori... Rangiku... Hisagi... Nanao... Iba; they all had one thing in common. The strange black markings that had appeared somewhere on their bodies.

"I have managed to capture six of the seven of you. A pity... I had hoped to finish this in one attack," Zommari noted.

"What do you mean, captured?! You haven't done anything yet!" Renji called out. Zommari simply sighed.

"You don't _get _it, do you? I suppose an apt demonstration is required..." the Arrancar said, closing his eyes and concentrating reiatsu into the six eyes that were apparently glowing.

"Raise your right arm, #1" he responded. He exerted reiatsu on an eye in the top right half of his chest. Over on the other side of things, Rangiku raised her right arm, her sword pointing dangerously at the others.

Renji noted that Rangiku's right arm was the one that held the strange sun-like symbol.

"E-Ehhh? What's going on?" the confused woman stated. Honestly, that question was what all of them should have been asking, especially when they saw Rangiku swing her sword at Hisagi.

"What are you doing, Matsumoto?!" Hisagi called out. He was unprepared for the direct strike from his comrade, but he still managed to avoid it even as she came out swinging.

"I don't know! My body's not listening to me!" she cried back, going in for a second strike.

"S-Stop!" Hisagi cried out, preparing to bounce away from the slash. Zommari raised his eyebrows, and Hisagi's left leg buckled out from underneath him as he was about to dodge. He lost his balance and fell onto the ground, and could do nothing as the oncoming Zanpakutou came in on him.

Blood erupted from his mouth and chest as the sharp blade slashed Hisagi clean through the torso. He flopped to the ground uselessly, near dead, his eyes bulging in terror.

His hands trembled heavily, as they moved to clutch the leg that had failed him. Blood continued to leak from his wound, but the only thing Hisagi was concerned about was his leg, which had refused to obey him, and had essentially caused him to sustain that injury.

"Hisagi!" Renji shouted, while the rest of the Vice-Captains suddenly became very concerned about how they were going to win this battle. It had gone from seven-on-one to six-on-one, and according to Zommari, he had most of them under his control.

"Have you grasped my abilities yet, pitiful Vice-Captains?" Zommari asked. He hadn't lifted a finger ever since he gained control of them. None of them answered, and instead just stared at the Espada warily.

"I will tell you. My ability is called Amor. Amor allows me to steal the "sovereignty" over any object I want. Every single thing in the universe has something the reigns over it; my Amor allows me to change it and take control of the sovereignty myself. For example, the limbs of your body..." he pointed out, motioning to Hisagi's leg.

Renji seemed to have figured out that he was the only one who wasn't underneath the control of Zommari.

"Well, you still haven't been able to control me!" he roared. "Howl, Zabimaru!" he shouted, activating his Shikai once again and swinging the extending blade towards Zommari. Zommari stared stoically at Renji, before Hinamori flashed into existence right in front of him and blocked Zabimaru with her own Tobiume.

"Hinamori!?" Renji cried out. Zommari smiled.

"I forgot to mention this... but if I take control of the head, then the entire body does my bidding..."

Indeed, there was a sun-shaped marking on Hinamori's forehead. Her eyes, however, were darting back and forth in confusion and fear, as she realized what was happening.

"A-Abarai-kun. I-I can't c-control any part of my b-body!" she squealed. Renji knew it was coming, but he was still unnerved by how Hinamori's body moved underneath Zommari's control.

Hinamori shrieked in alarm and despair as the Amor ability forced her to raise both of her arms, swinging wildly at Renji. Renji avoided the strikes easily, but he was still struggling on how to attack back without injuring Hinamori.

"Tobiume!" the controlled Hinamori shouted, a ball of fire charging in the tip of Shikai. Renji grunted in irritation, but fell back even as three of the other Captains held the rouge Vice-Captain down.

"All of you!" Renji cried. "How are you able to move underneath his control?" he asked. He recalled that the Arrancar had gotten all of them save him, so at the very least they should have at least one of their limbs incapacitated.

The Sixth Division's Vice-Captain looked down, to Omeada's right leg, Iba's left arm, and Rangiku's right arm. There was a single similarity between all three of them. On the affected extremities, there were clearly self-inflicted wounds that created small gashes over where the tendons where.

"You guys..." Renji said, biting his lip. They had cut their tendons and made one of their limbs essentially useless, and they were moving about at a much slower pace because of it.

Hinamori shrieked and threw all of them off her through Zommari's command. Then, she put her own sword to her neck, causing the others to pause in their renewed effort.

"Don't move! Any of you!" Zommari roared from behind the entire group of Vice-Captains. Tears began to run down Hinamori's face, as her grip tightened around her sword.

"I will end this myself..." Zommari said.

He clasped his hands together, even though he did not have a sword anymore.

"Resurrección Segunda Etapa: Brujería!"

As Zommari activated his second release, the Vice-Captains knew that it was almost hopeless for them. One of them had already fallen underneath his control, and as his reiatsu increased significantly, they had no plans.

"My Sonido is among the fastest of all Arrancar..." Zommari began speaking, as his body began to morph once again.

"Yet, when I enter my first release, I sacrifice a great deal of my own mobility for the power of Amor. In other words, my Sonido is no longer the fastest once I enter my released state. Obviously... a weakness like that should be considered unacceptable."

The pumpkin-like abdomen began to disappear.

"And through entering my Resurrección: Segunda Etapa, I can eliminate that weakness, and regain the speed that I had previously lost. With my Sonido and the power of Amor, I have no weaknesses..."

The pumpkin had disappeared completely. Growing over it in its place was bony material that had already covered his torso. His legs were covered in eyes too, but they had a sleek, mobile appearance which was vastly different than before. A row of spikes circling his hips and groin protected the eyes from being attacked.

"And I can fire my Amor... at a much quicker rate!"

He flashed out of existence.

Renji deflated, as he could barely pick up on where the Octava Espada was going to appear next. In fact, Zommari apparently wasn't going for him right now, as he darted right in front of Iba.

His dark-skinned hand obstructed Iba's view, as the eye in its palm fired another burst of light. Iba was caught off guard by the Espada's speed, and could do nothing as his Amor attached itself to his head, giving control total control over his body.

He began to move, much like Hinamori did, though he was still clearly in control of his mind even as his body disobeyed.

"Augh! Dammit!" he screamed in frustration, attacking his own comrades from every possible angle. Zommari seemed to have him tuned onto Omaeda in particular, and the bulky Vice-Captain was already hindered underneath the weight of Zommari's Amor.

"Bankai!"

Renji had clearly had quite enough of the cowardly tactics of the Arrancar, and activated his Bankai in the face of overwhelming odds. Two of his six comrades had fallen underneath the Arrancar's spell, one was incapacitated, and the rest were partially underneath the spell. It was time to stop holding back.

"Stop it, Abarai!" Iba called out. It was too late. Renji had already activated his Bankai in full, bringing out the bamboo snake king characteristic of Zabimaru.

The gigantic snake roared its battle cry, looking towards its master. Renji himself was dressed in a baboon fur-like shawl, his right arm turned into a monkey's hand, which was clutching the "hilt" tail of the giant bamboo snake.

"Hihio Zabimaru!"

Renji didn't seem to get to do more than show-off, because Zommari was behind him immediately after his pose, firing Amor after Amor. He hit three segments of the snake, not attacking Renji himself in the slightest.

"A very poor decision. Bringing out a Bankai such as that which I control will cost you... all of you dearly," Zommari remarked. The snake seemed to struggle in place, before directly obeying Zommari.

Even though Zommari hadn't hit the head, it was like the Bankai's entire sovereignty was stolen just by being hit on one of its segments. Zommari noticed this.

"Interesting. It seems that this creature is regarded as one being, despite the fact that it is made of multiple segments. It certainly makes my job all the easier."

And with that, the Bankai turned on its master.

It slammed down, and Renji cried out in alarm as his giant Bankai impacted the ground near him, nearly shattering the roof of the building in half and flinging shingles every which way.

"Abarai!" Iba cried out, still extremely handicapped due to the lack of control over his body. He couldn't do anything. None of them could.

"Augh!" Iba yelled. While he was calling out to Renji, the other Vice-Captain's Bankai had taken the opportunity to swing its tail across the side. Without even being able to move, the Seventh Division's Vice-Captain was helpless as the the tail slammed into his side, knocking the wind out of him and throwing his body off of the roof.

"Iba!" Renji shouted. And then there were four of them. Four of the original seven were the only ones capable of fighting now, and by the looks of things, three of them were completely incapacitated.

Renji seemed to realize that enough was enough, and moved to call back his Bankai.

Nothing occurred; it was completely underneath Zommari's control.

"Shit!" he called out. The snake roared again, and Zommari surveyed the remaining Vice-Captains. Hinamori, Iba, and Hisagi had been incapacitated, which left just Renji, Nanao, Rangiku, and Omaeda. Of those four, only Renji was not underneath the Espada's control.

"Abarai-fukutaichou, please call back your Bankai!" Nanao called out to him. She at least didn't bring her Zanpakutou, so it wasn't like he was at any risk of suddenly being slashed at. Nevertheless, he would have to watch out if she started lobbing Kidou at him.

"I can't! His ability won't let me!" he called out. The controlled Bankai began to attack again. It bucked and thrashed in place, even as Zommari began to control it.

He chuckled.

"It is no use, my lowly Vice-Captains. Most of you are already underneath my Amor, and the fourth member of your crew has had his abilities nullfied. I think it would be best to surrender at this point, and understand that you have lost."

"And let Soul Society be overrun with you Arrancars? Not a chance!" Renji shouted back.

"I admire your zeal, but tell me, what can you possibly do at this point without your Zanpakutou?"

"Try me!" Renji roared, grabbing the hilt of his Zanpakutou. Zommari grimaced as Renji picked it up, and through a method that Zommari did not understand, he regained control over it once again.

"Split! Hihio Zabimaru!"

The snake roared, before its reiatsu bonds broke apart and the bamboo snake burst into its component segments, each one acting individually in and of itself.

"What is this?!" Zommari cried out in surprise, as he felt control being lost over the Bankai. Actually, that wasn't quite entirely true. As the segments were hovering around in mid-air, he found he could control just three of dozens of segments. The ones with his Amor symbol on them.

He had gotten careless.

"You thought you could take control of my Bankai like that, didn't you? If you had gone for the head and taken control of that, you could've probably controlled the whole of it. But you didn't. Instead, you simply took control of a few small segments of the entire Bankai..." Renji pointed out.

"Wait, don't tell me..."

"Still confused on why on my Bankai was obeying your commands. It's simple, I staged it!" Renji yelled. "I purposefully moved it to where you wanted it to go, to give you the idea that you were in complete control of it!"

Zommari looked livid once again, and all of the eyes across his body opened once again, flashing their purplish glow as they began to target Renji himself for the first time.

"Die! Take it! Take you stupid Bankai back and succumb to my AMOR!" Zommari shouted, firing blast after blast of Amor. Renji simply levitated one of his Bankai's segments to shield him.

The downside for him was that Zommari gained control of one more part of his Bankai, but there were still many more where that came from. He concentrated his reiatsu, and the segments hovered over Zommari.

"Higa Zekkou!"

His expanded Bankai's version of his Shikai's special ability loomed over Zommari's head, magenta spears of reiatsu forming where the bamboo segments were once.

"This pathetic... Amor!" Zommari shouted, firing all his blasts of Amor as the disbanded pieces of reiatsu. Pure reiryoku didn't seem to be something that he could control, however, and his Amor failed to steal the sovereignty.

The blades of reiatsu thrust down on Zommari, even as the Octava drew himself into his defensive sphere. They impacted the outermost portion of his sphere, puncturing the hide.

Blood leaked from the sphere; the attack was powerful. Much more powerful than it had been ten years ago, and Renji was no longer a Vice-Captain level Shinigami, regardless of whether he still held the rank.

"Well done, Abarai-fukutaichou..." Nanao pointed out. "That Arrancar's arrogance was his downfall, and he has paid it. Feeling is already returning to my limbs, and I can see it is the same with the rest of the still active Vice-Captains..."

"This is UNFORGIVEABLE!" the sphere that was Zommari shouted, while blood leaked out of his body. The sphere retracted like petals falling off a flower, and the streamlined form of Zommari's Segunda Etapa emerged. Yet, he was heavily injured.

"You're still alive? Can't say I'm surprised..." Renji said. The Octava Espada was furious, far more so than he had been before, but roughly half of his eyes had been disabled.

"You're gonna pay for this! I've had enough of toying with you! Prepare to succumb to my Amor, and be used to kill your own comrades throughout Seireitei!" he roared.

"You don't get it, do you?" Nanao piped up. The dark-skinned Arrancar made no indication that he heard her. He fired a desperate Amor towards Renji, but a Bakudo-type Kidou sprung up around Renji, blocking the Amor.

"You've already lost. Give it up..." Rangiku said, as the remaining four Vice-Captains fell into line with one another, slowly and dreadfully walking towards the wounded Zommari.

"No! I will not lose to lowly Vice-Captains such as you!" he screamed. He tried to use Sonido to get away, but he was so heavily injured that he was rendered immobile.

The Vice-Captains did not change their expressions, as all of them, even Nanao, drew their swords. The four of them hovered over Zommari, whose Amor was now completely useless.

They all raised the swords above their heads in unison, and slashed them down on Zommari.

The swords sliced the Octava Espada to ribbons, and a torrent of blood flowed out onto the rooftop as he butchered into smaller and smaller pieces by the remaining Vice-Captains.

* * *

"You're dead, kid..."

Grimmjow wasn't smiling as the air itself began to burn, but he knew instantly that once that air became hot enough, the battle between him and Hitsugaya would be over.

"See, your Bankai is melting. Guess your Captain-Commander didn't realize that some of his soldiers would be negatively affected should he try and use his Bankai. But, it doesn't matter."

"Hitsugaya-taichou!" a Shinigami shouted at him. The voice sounded rather weak, considering that the rest of his squad was getting manhandled by Konohamaru.

Nevertheless, Hitsugaya did not pay any attention to them. He was more concerned about the water dripping from back, as the ice from his Bankai became completely useless water.

Grimmjow also seemed to be affected by the power of Yamamoto's Bankai, but he didn't suffer any drop in his abilities by being near it. With Hitsugaya in nothing but his sealed state, the Captain was hopelessly outclassed by the Séptima.

Hitsugaya looked for any exit he could, or any attack he could use in his sealed state that would help him fight this Arrancar. Meanwhile, almost all of his men had been decimated by Konohamaru.

He stared at Grimmjow, who was charging up his reiatsu, and he struggled to figure out what to do. Before he could even react, the speedy Arrancar entered his guard without a hint of hesitation.

The child prodigy Captain was promptly slashed down.

* * *

"Zanka no Tachi..."

Naruto's breathing began to increase dramatically, as the air around him began to heat up significantly. Being this close to Yamamoto's Bankai, it was like he was inhaling fire.

Nevertheless, the true form of Yamamoto's Bankai was not very impressive. Usually, Bankai's are something large and impressive, but Naruto saw that all Yamamoto was holding was a short katana, heavily scorched by fire. A dim flame was rising up from its blades, and appearance wise it did not look all that threatening.

The heat in the air seemed to tell a different story.

When Yamamoto activated his Bankai, Naruto felt several reiatsus disappear at once.

"Damn, Zommari's down too it looks like. I'm more shocked at the reiatsu level of those who defeated him, but I guess he let his arrogance get the best of him. Still, that leaves just seven Espada now. I wasn't expecting to lose that many..." he commented to himself, even as another Captain's reiatsu disappeared, from over where he felt Grimmjow's reiatsu.

"Are you just gonna sit there and stall? Your Captains are dying left and right, and we've just about beaten you. If you truly want to win, you'll have to take me out right here and right now..."

"Whoa!" Naruto grunted in alarm, as Yamamoto swung his sword at him. Using his full speed, he dodged to the right. It did not touch his body, but the blade did clip the edge of his robe, and a large portion where it touched was instantly obliterated. There were no flames.

Naruto whistled, but when he opened his mouth he coughed on the heated air.

"D-Damn, just being around you makes me feel like I'm going to lose! I'm not even sure I have a response for this!" Naruto said. He would just have to dodge at this point.

"Zanka no Tachi, Higashi: Kyokujitsujin!" Yamamoto cried, slashing at Naruto yet again. The sword impacted into the ground, creating a giant crater after it obliterated the stone the instant it touched it. Naruto was nowhere to seen.

"Cero Corazón!"

Naruto slipped inside his guard, his cutlass glowing a deep orange.

"Zanka no Tachi, Nishi: Zanjitsu Gokui!" Yamamoto roared, though nothing happened. Naruto felt his reiatsu rise, but there were no changes. Regardless, Naruto steered away his attack on Yamamoto, and used Sonido to dart away from Yamamoto.

When he touched down around ten feet away from Yamamoto, he grabbed his sword and slashed a deep line in the stone. Ten feet away from Yamamoto; he would have to retain his distance.

"_That Bankai... it produces so much heat that his signature flames are not visible anymore. He incinerated the hem of my robe with such heat that it can no longer produce flames. He's wreathing himself in that same heat right now. I can feel it; it's burning me up. But if I so much as touch him right now I'd be obliterated..."_

"Shit!" Naruto cursed, as Yamamoto began to attack once again. A flurry of strikes almost too fast for Naruto to comprehend came at him, as Yamamoto wielded his blade with an incredible amount of expertise.

And Naruto had to avoid them all. One slightest little touch on any area of his skin, and he would be obliterated instantly. He doubted even his incredibly tough Hierro would be able to stand up to this level of heat.

He contorted his body from left to right and ducked underneath multiple strikes, not even daring to parry with his sword. Yamamoto swung out a foot which hit Naruto in the gut, and the Primera Espada found his Hierro breaking underneath the powerful strike.

His attacks were fluid, and there was absolutely no wasted movement by the Captain-Commander of Soul Society.

Naruto wanted to make an experiment.

Listlessly, he fired one of his normal orange Ceros at Yamamoto. The Captain-Commander did not even bother dodging or deflecting the blast. Rather, he just stood in the center of the area. The blast impacted with Yamamoto, but the heat around him was so great that he even managed to incinerate a Cero.

"That's one effective shield..." Naruto muttered to himself. He jumped into mid-air, trying to get a better vantage point with which he could attack. Perhaps he had to...

Perhaps not, though. He just had to wait for the important moment, and at that point, everything would be tipped in his favor. He just had to stall Yamamoto for the time being. If he fell, then the old Shinigami would be free to stick it to the rest of his forces.

He gripped his sword; perhaps he could maniupate the reiatsu around him. He focused in on Yamamoto's reiatsu from his perch in mid-air, and it nearly seared his entire core.

With Yamamoto's Shikai, he had felt a slight heat as he manipulated the reiryoku, yet his Bankai's reiryoku was a searing heat far beyond that. It seemed that manipulating it was dangerous even to the one in charge. There was no way Naruto could manipulate it if that were the case.

"Cero Venenoso!" he shouted in mid-air, firing the glob of poison down upon Yamamoto. Like with the previous Cero, the poison was burned away by Yamamoto's wreath.

He latched himself onto the roof of the First Division's barracks, scrambling along the shingles as he attempted to get to a better place to fight. The balcony wasn't working; he needed a more open area.

A massive chimney lay before him, and the Primera Espada used it as shelter to shield him from the oncoming Captain-Commander. Speaking of which, the Captain-Commander himself had taken to the roof, his sword hanging at his side. He already knew how to attack Naruto.

"Zanka no Tachi, Higashi: Kyokujitsujin!" he roared as he attacked. While his other attacks did not produce any flames, this was one different. It was still as hot as the others, but with the blast came a pillar of massive horizontal flames that barreled toward their target.

Naruto was able to pick up on them this time, when he felt the heat from the reiryoku begin to barrel its way toward him. He winced and grimaced while still hunkered down by the massive chimney, and he knew that the stone structure was no where near resilient enough to shield him from the oncoming blast.

The blast of fire and heat bore through the chimney where Naruto was hiding, but Yamamoto's eyes narrowed when he felt a spike of reiatsu coming from where Naruto was.

He had attacked the Arrancar, and should have seemingly incinerated him, but that wasn't what the leader of Soul Society felt. He was always able to feel the reiryoku behind his attacks, but when the blast of fire impacted the chimney and incinerated it, it was like it was not there anymore. His eyes were telling him similar things. It was like the blast of fire was being fed into the mouth of a massive void, and disappearing into its depths.

Whatever the case, he knew that his last attack had not been effective against the Arrancar.

The smoke and dust concealed Naruto from view, but Yamamoto knew from the strong reiatsu that the Arrancar was still up there. And he seemed different. At one point, he had the reiatsu that Yamamoto was used to feeling throughout the fight. Then, for a few seconds, there was a gigantic spike in his reiatsu, similar to when a Shinigami moved from Shikai to Bankai, but as soon as it had arrived, it was gone, and was back to where Yamamoto had felt it earlier.

"Hot damn! That's some incredible reiatsu. It was so hot; I thought I was gonna burn up from feeling it! WOO!" Naruto's voice resounded from down below. It was a lot different than when Yamamoto had heard it earlier, much more deranged.

"But is that all?! I'm afraid you will no longer have access to your Bankai at this point!" Naruto whooped, as another new face warped into the space directly behind Yamamoto, catching even the ancient Captain off guard.

"Wonderweiss!" Naruto ordered. The young-looking Arrancar left behind from Aizen's era had entered his Resurrección, the strange Extinguir that made him look resoundingly alien.

The old Captain swung his sword to the left, aiming to exterminate the Arrancar before he could even get in the sneak attack that he had been so apt to have done.

Wonderweiss reached out a white hand and grasped the blade of Yamamoto's Zanpakutou. Where the Arrancar should have been obliterated by the Captain's Bankai, nothing of the sort had occurred. He could only watch as his Bankai hissed from the heat, yet as soon as he touched the Arrancar, he knew that any attack power had left his Zanpakutou.

The modified Arrancar simply needed to touch his Zanpakutou once, and with that, his job was over. He did not make any move to attack Yamamoto, simply hovering in mid-air as Yamamoto punched him away with his free arm when he did not attack. Wonderweiss was not fazed.

Naruto was walking out of his hiding place, a slight twitch in his eye. His hair was messy and unkempt, and his eyes were wide with bloodthirst and lunacy. His sharp teeth were bared.

"What did you do?" Yamamoto asked, his voice calm. However, he was gripping his useless Zanpakutou in his hands furiously, but no fire welled up from within.

Naruto continued to twitch.

"Oh, that? Well, I guess it'd be alright to tell you what happened! You see him..." he pointed dramatically down at Wonderweiss, who was lying motionless on the balcony below.

"He's a remnant of the time when Aizen ruled. Aizen managed to develop the first and only _modified Arrancar_. With that, everything else was removed from him for one sole purpose: Neutralize Yamamoto Genryuusai-Shigekuni's Zanpakutou..."

"I see. Aizen has left some very nasty devices for you to work with... However..." he shot up, crashing down onto the roof, sending wooden splinters flying everywhere. His fists were cocked, their muscles bulging as he abandoned his haori to compensate for a much more physical fighting style.

"I have led the Soul Society for over a thousand years, and in that time there has been absolutely _no one_ who has been able to surpass my abilities as a Shinigami. Losing the ability to use my Ryuujin Jakka does not make me helpless, _boy_!" Yamamoto snarled, his fists clenching as Wonderweiss got to his feet without so much as a fuss.

Naruto snickered, his twitching not subsiding yet.

"Ha! Well, you *snrrk* can't just sit there and *snrrrrrrrk* expect to fight Wonderweiss. Now isn't... *snrk* the time for that y'know. We've got a status quo to upkeep, so..." Naruto hissed, as he leapt down from his perch and crashed directly in between both Yamamoto and Wonderweiss.

"It'd be one thing to fight Wonderweiss, but do you honestly expect that you can beat _me_ without your Zanpakutou?"

Yamamoto said nothing. He didn't even show any signs of emotion, other than complete determination in defeating his foe.

"Ikkotsu!"

There was nothing fancy about Yamamoto's punch. No technique more than a straight forward punch that went sailing towards Naruto as the Arrancar went on the offensive. Yet, the punch was so quick, and so strong, and Naruto knew the type of damage that Hakuda from the Captain-Commander of Soul Society would do.

Just as the punch was about to hit, Naruto directly sidestepped the punch using a combination of agility and Sonido, but even the wind from the punch was strong enough to disorient Naruto slightly.

Naruto swung his cutlass at the barehanded Yamamoto, directing a flurry of slashes with the intent of killing him. The Captain-Commander skillfully managed to avoid or counter them all, though his bare fists were not sufficient enough to touch Naruto's blade without getting injured.

Yamamoto grunted as Naruto reared back and shoved the hilt of his sword into his stomach, sending the old Captain skidding back several meters. His trained eyes turned to the sky immediately when he registered movement. Naruto was overhead, prepared to swoop down on him, using the sun overhead to try and blind Yamamoto.

"Cero Corazón!" he roared, as the hilt of his cutlass glowed orange once again. He swung down in mid-air, a jet of orange Cero zigzagging down towards Yamamoto.

The old Captain avoided it as the bladed Cero cut a line directly through the enormous balcony they were. He then ducked underneath a swipe from Naruto, which created yet another trail of Cero where he cut the air. However, he left himself open.

"Sokotsu!" Yamamoto roared, putting both of his hands together to make a powerful double punch that likely would've killed even Naruto. The Primera Espada put up his sword to block the punches as both fists impacted the blade. The energy of the Cero on it seared Yamamoto's fists, but the pressure almost snapped Naruto's Zanpakutou clean in two.

"Argh!" Naruto snarled. He was pushed back by the Sokotsu, but regained his balance fairly easily. The old man still was very capable even without his Zanpakutou, but it was only a matter of time now.

The fires around Seireitei crackled in the background, and Naruto couldn't help but make a little jab at Yamamoto.

"Does it bother you? Seeing your precious Seireitei in such a state? Several of your Captains are dead by now, but you must really have a heart of ice if you can shrug off their deaths so easily..."

Wonderweiss moaned over to the side.

"Well, you're able to hold your own at least, but it won't be long now. I might as well finish this..." he said. "With my third and final form of Cero..." he finished, sheathing his sword.

He clapped both of his hands together, before pulling them apart. Strings of orange reiryoku connected his palms together, and as he twisted his palms in a rotation, the strands of reiryoku became more like a spiral.

"Cero Espiral!"

Before he could release the Cero, something occurred. Just like with Wonderweiss, a new figure appeared on the battlefield out of nowhere, though the new arrival merely stood there, and did not attempt to take either of the two fighters.

When Naruto saw the figure, his face lit up in a wide smile. When Yamamoto saw it, his face blanched.

"Ulquiorra!" Naruto called out, as his second-in-command brushed off his robes from the recent Sonido and calmly regarded both his ruler and the leader of Soul Society.

He said just one thing.

"All of the keys have been gathered..."

Naruto grinned evilly, but this was also the first time in the battle where Yamamoto showed even the slightest amount of fear. If his Zanpakutou were not disable, he likely would have incinerated Ulquiorra on the spot.

"You... How did you know about that?" Yamamoto asked. Ulquiorra didn't say anything.

"Allow me to explain it to you, old fucker! We know the purpose of those keys, the purpose of those keys that you have spent the last thousand years keeping your Captains in the dark about. But we have the information!" Naruto cackled.

"Tell me, do you remember a Hollow named Reporo?" he asked suddenly, a sinister smile widening on Naruto's face. Yamamoto didn't know what he was talking about, until the memories flooded back.

"Yes... that legendary Hollow... he invaded the Soul Society all those years ago. He managed to steal the keys from the Captains, but I managed to stop him from fulfilling his goals. Don't tell me..."

"Reporo is long dead, but his legacy still echoes throughout Hueco Mundo..." Naruto started. He pulled two keys out of his pocket, one with the number "2" and the other with the number "11".

"You really should investigate Hueco Mundo more often. I know you Shinigami believe us to be nothing more than a conglomeration of mindless Hollows, but we are so much more than that. We leave legacies just like humans, and before Reporo died, he wrote a book, which he hid in his legendary empire for anyone who might stumble across it."

"And that someone happened to be me!"

"That scum, he detailed the things he discovered during his incursion..." Yamamoto commented.

"I really do have to thank him. The book, El Libro de Ciclos, documents practically every aspect of Hollow life, and was a travel journal of sorts for Reporo. We have managed to crack the secrets of Arrancarisation thanks to him, but more important, we have discovered what purpose those keys hold..." he sighed wistfully.

"If we hold on to them... they can change everything!"

Naruto shot his hand out, catching a massive punch from the disabled Captain, whose face was a picture of pure rage.

"You're getting ahead of yourself, _boy!_ Those keys are an important tradition within Soul Society that allows for the balance of power to be maintained within the branches of Soul Society. Without the Royal Guard, you cannot fulfill your purpose. Without the Royal Guard, you cannot even enter the palace where that machine lies!" Yamamoto roared.

Naruto only smirked.

"Don't you worry about that, old man. We've already got it covered. In fact, look!" Naruto pointed. Yamamoto didn't want to give this tricky Hollow any leeway, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw a massive pillar making its way down from the heavens, on clear course to the Soul Society.

"The Tenchuren! This cannot be!"

Naruto looked like Christmas had come early.

"So, Sakura made due on her promise! We can advance to the Royal Palace!" Naruto shouted. With a cry of victory, he roared to the heavens, a Hollow-like roar that reverberated through the Soul Society.

"The others have arrived, Naruto..." Ulquiorra commented. Yamamoto's eyes widened when five more shadows touched down in a straight line next on either side of Ulquiorra.

Starrk, Harribel, Nnoitra, Grimmjow, and Yammy. The seven remaining Espada had officially gathered in one spot for their final rendezvous with the Spirit King. Those that had been released had dropped it beforehand.

"Most of the Divisions have been wiped out. Multiple Captains are dead

Behind Yamamoto and Naruto, the pillar crashed into the ground into the balcony, prepared to take the seven Arrancar into the other dimension. And once they were there, the regular army could be brought in.

For the first time, Yamamoto looked completely lost.

"It's over, Yamamoto. Soul Society is finished. You've lost, old fucker!" Naruto guffawed, as he twisted the Cero energy from his Cero Espiral in his hands. He held Yamamoto in place before the old Captain tried to avoid the attack, and prepared to release it.

"There's still something that bothers me, though. Throughout this entire invasion, I have not seen anyone I recognize from Konoha. It's almost like they're not hear. Oh well, I guess I can hunt after them later! See ya!" Naruto said cheerfully.

Yamamoto brought his arm back, going in for one more Ikkotsu. Naruto sidestepped once again, and grabbed his wrist without so much as a fuss, the energy still swirling in his hands.

He released the vortex that was a Cero and moved away as it embedded itself in Yamamoto's chest. The old Captain glared at Naruto, defiant to the end. Without Ryuujin Jakka, he was outclassed. Naruto was faster than he was, and had enough agility to avoid or counter any of his Hakuda. But he would _not_ drop his pride in front of this brat.

The Cero began to rip at him as the energy rendered asunder, and the Cero expanded further and further as a vortex of pure reiryoku, which was strong enough to nearly rip the surrounding balcony around to shreds, with everything in its way being destroyed.

And Yamamoto was directly in the center of it.

* * *

And so ends the second-to-final arc, the Invasion of Soul Society.

The final arc is coming up soon. It's quite a bit longer than this one.

**Translations and Other Features**

Brujería: Witchcraft

Amor: Love

Resurrección Segunda Etapa: Brujería: Resurrection Second Stage: Witchcraft

Hihio Zabimaru: Baboon King Snake Tail

Zanka no Tachi: Longsword of the Remnant Flame

Zanka no Tachi, Higashi: Kyokujitsujin: Longsword of the Remnant Flame, East: Rising Sun Edge

Zanka no Tachi, Nishi: Zanjitsu Gokui: Longsword of the Remnant Flame, West: Remnant Sun Prison Garb

Zanka no Tachi, Kita: Tenchi Kaijin: Longsword of the Remnant Flame, North: Heaven and Earth End in Ashes

Ikkotsu: Single Bone

Sokotsu: Double Bone

Cero Espiral: Spiral Cero

**Current Espada**

1st: Naruto Uzumaki

2nd: Ulquiorra Cifer

3rd: Coyote Starrk

4th: Baraggan Louisenbairn (deceased)

5th: Tier Harribel

6th: Nnoitra Gilga

7th: Grimmjow Jeagerjaquez

8th: Zommari Rureaux (deceased)

9th: Szayel Aporro Granz (deceased)

10th: Yammy Llargo

**Konoha Association**

Namikaze Minato: 5th Division Captain

Uzumaki Kushina: 3rd Division Captain

Jiraiya: 9th Division Captain

Hatake Kakashi: 5th Division Vice-Captain (deceased)

Rin: 3rd Division Vice-Captain (Captain level)

Tsunade: 4th Division Vice-Captain (Captain level)

Sarutobi Hiruzen: Visored

Hyuuga Hinata: 13th Division Vice-Captain (above Vice-Captain level)

Nara Shikamaru: 8th Division 3rd Seat (above Vice-Captain level)

Inuzuka Kiba: 7th Division 4th Seat (Vice-Captain level)

Hyuuga Neji: 6th Division 3rd Seat (above Vice-Captain level)

Yamanaka Ino: 10th Division 3rd Seat (Vice-Captain level)


	56. Pilar del Cielo

Okay, here we go. The final twelve Chapters of this story will be the final and climax arc, and it begins right here. This one's a transitional chapter, so its not very long, I'm afraid.

* * *

Chapter 56: Pilar del Cielo

As the Cero Espiral consumed the Captain-Commander of Soul Society, the Arrancar knew that they had won, and the Soul Society knew that they had lost.

Naruto Uzumaki had managed the impossible, what no one had managed to do in over one thousand years. The whole of Soul Society stood silent as the orange tempest raged over the First Division's barracks like an ominous storm, and the surrounding stone and wood began to peel away from the force.

The seven remaining Espada watched the scene unfold, as Yamamoto flopped around in the vortex of orange energy. The old Captain's face was a mask of stoicism, even though the Cero rendered him asunder.

Naruto was the exact opposite. He was grinning like a lunatic the entire time.

The vortex raged for about a minute, before the orange energy of the Cero finally dispersed, and the balcony was completely in ruin. Naruto and the other Espada watched in pure silence, even as the Cero dissipated, and Yamamoto's body flopped onto the ground.

He had been sliced clean in two, but the commander of the Shinigami had died never allowing the pride of the Shinigami to be tarnished. Regardless, the strongest Shinigami had died.

Naruto chuckled, before his chuckling turned into full-blown maniacal laughter, as he darted up and kicked the dead Shinigami in the face multiple times.

"How does it feel, old fuckhead? I _beat_ you. I beat your Soul Society! I beat the Shinigami! You guys are all dead, and Hollows are on the verge of taking your stupid "paradise","

He cackled once more, and even Grimmjow and Nnoitra started to laugh at their greatest triumph thus far. Harribel, Starrk, and Ulquiorra merely stood in stony silence, while Yammy also began to laugh stupidly at Soul Society's expense.

All around them, Soul Society burned. Even now, the main Arrancar force was going around slaughtering any non-Captain level Shinigami. Many of the Captains were dead already.

The Shinigami had lost, and the Hollows had won. It taken him over three-hundred years, but Naruto finally managed it. He had finally destroyed the Shinigami, and to prove it, he had personally killed their leader.

Yet, there was still one final piece to the puzzle, which would be Naruto's biggest trial yet.

"Alright, there are seven Espada left. Zommari and Szayel bit the dust, and Baraggan betrayed us, so I had to put him down. Not the result I would've liked, but we can still easily accomplish our goals with this many left. And now, our ride has arrived!" Naruto said, addressing the other six Espada.

"The Royal Guard is strong. They are few in number, but they are strong. Fortunately, we will have as much _help_ as we need, and it won't be necessary to kill the Royal Guard at this point. You just need to keep them out of the Royal Palace."

As Naruto spoke, the doors to the large pillar in front of him opened. A young-looking woman with pink hair stepped out of the "vehicle". Instead of the Vandenreich robes she wore earlier, she was now dressed in a white haori, with the symbol being four stars. It signified that she was a member of the Royal Guard.

"Sakura..." Naruto muttered. He wasn't happy to see her, but at least she got the job done quickly. The other Espada didn't bat an eyelash; they already knew the purpose that Sakura brought them.

"So nice to see you again, Naruto-kun? Ooh, and look! It feels a little bit sad, but you've managed to successfully killed Yamamoto Genryuusai-Shigekuni. And do I see fire in the background? By golly, you've really managed to tear Soul Society a new asshole!" she raised her fist.

"We're not done yet, Sakura! We've got all the keys, but they won't be of any use if we are not able to defeat the other members of the Royal Guard. You're the Kidou expert; do you have the main Garganta prepared?"

"Yes... your army is free to come in at any time, as soon as we arrive," she giggled. Naruto growled at her behavior; having someone near him as psychotic as himself could get annoying.

"Let's go! We can't back to the Royal Palace dimension this way, but fortunately the trip back isn't very problematic. We'll just have to take Shiba Kuukaku's cannon by force. That's the way the Tenchuren can make it there. Let's see; seven of you are making the trip. There should be plenty of room!"

Naruto nodded, much more subdued than in his celebration of his victory, but the other six Espada boarded the Tenchuren without a fuss. As the doors closed and the pillar took to the sky, the surviving Shinigami of Seireitei were left to wonder just how they had lost the battle.

* * *

A blanket was placed over the dead Yamamoto Genryuusai's head.

Two Captains stood over the fallen Shinigami, their eyes tinged with sadness. Those two were his first students, Kyouraku Shunsui and Ukitake Juushirou. They had both suffered moderate wounds from their battles with Starrk and Harribel, but they were able to move like normal.

Those two Arrancar were far too merciful.

"Yama-jii..." Kyouraku said. There was none of the usual pep to his voice; this time it was nothing but pure sadness. Ukitake didn't say anything, but his expression was the same. Regardless, both of them were extremely troubled by what Yamamoto's death would bring.

"What do we do now, Kyouraku?" Ukitake asked rhetorically. He already knew the answer.

"Soul Society has lost. But those Arrancar are still out there; they're trying to take the Royal Palace. We just have to have faith in the strength of the Royal Guard, while staying behind and rebuilding. That's all we really do now; we're no match for them. Yet, if the Royal Guard fails to stop those Arrancar..." he paused for a second, letting it sink in.

"We're all doomed."

"I would still like to know just where they came from. There was no indication of anything like this occurring. I thought that with the death of Aizen, there wouldn't be enough power in Hueco Mundo to directly challenge the Soul Society. And the Royal Guard... I saw the Tenchuren arrive not too long ago, and the remaining Espada boarding it. How did they manage to do that?"

"Perhaps there's a traitor in the mix?" Kyouraku offered. It was a troubling thought for the both of them, but it was the only possibility that they could think of at the time.

"It couldn't have come at a worst time, either. Now that the Konoha..." Ukitake was cut off, as a Garganta opened in the space where the wrecked balcony stood. It was wide enough to accommodate hundreds of people, which was the perfect amount for the Konoha Association.

"This doesn't sit right. All of a sudden we're invaded when a prime force of ours is gone. Speaking of which, it seems they've made it back here, but too little too late I suppose..." Ukitake commented, as the Garganta opened wider and wider.

"Kyouraku-san! Ukitake-san!"

The voice of their fellow Captain Namikaze Minato rang out as the blonde haired man exited the Garganta that had been set up for them by Valicav. He had spotted the two senior Captains the moment he had exited the portal, but it took him a few more minutes to notice the cold body that was at their feet.

"Ah... Minato. We're glad you're back..." Kyouraku said, half-heartedly. Minato would've smiled at them, but his eyes were trained on the dead body of their leader that currently rested at their feet. Several other prominent members of the Konoha Association exited the Garganta, and had a similar reaction to Minato when they first locked eyes with Yamamoto's corpse.

"W-What... what happened?" Minato asked, still in shock. He didn't want to believe that his son the Hollow was currently the leader of a group of invaders, but it became pretty clear when he regarded the state of Seireitei.

Their leader lay dead, many buildings were demolished while corpses littered the street, and many areas of the Seireitei were on fire. It was madness, when they left it was in perfect condition. Now, it looked like the apocalypse was upon them. Soul Society was an absolute wasteland.

"An invasion..." Kyouraku said, pointing out the obvious. "The Espada live on; they were biding their time, waiting for the right moment to strike, despite the fact that Aizen is long dead. We weren't prepared for them, and it cost us dearly. Yama-jii... was killed by their leader. Several other Captains have been killed, and Kurotsuchi-taichou has been permanently disabled. This was an invasion we may never be able to recover from..."

"I can't believe it. Sou-taichou..." Kushina piped up. Her face was a mess of turmoil, for she had a sneaking suspicion who had killed Yamamoto and plunged Seireitei into such turmoil.

"Where are the Arrancar now?"

"We don't know how they did it, but they current took the Tenchuren to the Royal Palace. They are not satisfied with destroying Soul Society on its own; they are going after the Spirit King's head..." Ukitake explained.

"_What?_" Kushina screamed.

"We can do nothing more now than trust in the power of the Royal Guard to stop them. We have no way of following them or even getting in contact with the Royal Guard, but if they should somehow fail..."

"Kyouraku-san, Ukitake-san... we intend to go after them..." Minato pointed out. The rest of the Konoha Association stared at him dumbly, even his sensei and wife.

"We do?" Jiraiya asked stupidly.

"Why?" Kyouraku asked. He wasn't in the mind for games; none of them were.

"If I must admit something, I believe we all feel a certain amount of responsibility for allowing this to occur. We may have been played, but that doesn't change the fact that we were out hunting an elusive Hollow in little more than a revenge hunt while Soul Society was in its time of need. That is shameful in and of itself, but there's also the matter of what we have learned in our excursion into Hueco Mundo..." Minato trailed off.

"Which is?"

Minato and Kushina's eyes were downcast, and the two senior Captains noticed the change in atmosphere within the group.

"The leader of this group of Hollows, and the one who had planned this invasion... he's my son. Vulpes C... otherwise known as Uzumaki Naruto. We've been looking for him for so long, and we finally found him. It just wasn't what we were expecting the result to be."

"It's alright, Minato-san. It's not your fault..." Kurosaki Ichigo said, as he too stepped out of the Garganta and laid eyes upon the Captain-Commander of Soul Society.

"This is a troubling revelation, Minato. He is the one who you have been searching for all this time?" Kyouraku commented. "Don't feel like you have to take responsibility for any of this. What's done is done; we can't blame any single Shinigami for allowing this to happened."

"But we were played for fools! They coordinated this attack to happen while we were gone! We need to go after them, and with the Royal Guard..." he trailed off, before he finally seemed to realize something.

"Akane and Taiki are there! There's a good chance that Naruto will run into them! We need to go and support them!" Minato gushed. His son and daughter were members of the Royal Guard, and if the Royal Guard were to be fighting the Arrancar...

"I see that nothing can be done to stop, regardless of Soul Society's rebuilding phase. However, there is more to this than simple politics. I do not know how the Arrancar have managed to invade the Royal Palace, but it should be clear to all of you that Shinigami of the Gotei 13 cannot enter that dimension as they please..." Ukitake said.

"Not so fast, Ukitake. While it is true that Shinigami of the Gotei 13 cannot enter the dimension at will, it is true that the Gotei 13 may send a distress signal to the Royal Guard in times of crisis. Whether they decide to respond or not is up to them, but at the very least it is something that may open the way to the Royal Palace. And it just so happens that Yama-jii got desperate enough to send a signal to the Royal Guard not too long after the invasion began..." Kyouraku piped up.

"Are you serious, Kyouraku-san?" Kushina asked. She _had_ heard of a rule like that, but she couldn't recall when the signal had ever been used. In fact, except for when her children came back on their _very_ rare leave, she never had any contact with the Royal Guard or the Spirit King's dimension.

"I don't know if they'll come or not, though. They may already have their hands full with-" he was cut off, before his eyes turned to the skies overhead. "Well, speak of the devil..."

Just like shortly before, a long white pillar became visible soaring through the sky, though it was clear that this one was not full of traitors and/or Arrancar. There was no way they were done invading the dimension.

The new Tenchuren behaved in an eerily familiar manner to the first one; it almost impacted at the same exact spot where the first one had landed and had taken the seven Arrancar to the Royal Palace.

"They're actually here..." Ukitake said, not bothering to hide the surprise in his voice. "You would think that all of them would be a little more occupied at the moment."

Like the Tenchuren from before, the gigantic pillar opened, and the Konoha Association gasped in awe as they laid eyes upon members of the Royal Guard.

For some of the higher up members such as the Namikazes, Shikamaru, Kiba, and company, a light smile made its way on their faces as they saw the two figures descend from the pillar. Helpful allies had come their way.

"Hey, what's up, everybody!? Things going well!?" a raucous male voice trumpeted from one of the figures, and the one on the right stepped out into view.

"Read the scene, idiot! Does this look like everything's going okay?" a much calmer female voice chastised from the left figure. She too stepped out into view.

"Akane! Taiki!" Minato called out. He would recognize his children's voice from anywhere. The red-haired twins stepped came into view of the Konoha Association, some of whom regarded them with awe. After all, they were the greatest pride of the Konoha Association, but they were rarely ever seen due to their status.

"Dad!" Taiki called out, rushing up to his father. Akane on the other hand calmly walked up to her father, and with a serious look, she nodded with an acknowledgement of his presence.

It was strange, the way the twins had grown up and grown different during their time in the Royal Guard. When they were kids, Akane had always been the hyperactive one, while Taiki had been a shy, calm, and rational boy. As they spent time in the Zero Division, it seemed like their personalities had switched. Akane in particular was much colder and calculating, while Taiki had turned wild.

"Are you alright?" Minato asked.

The twins looked confused.

"Why wouldn't we be alright?" Taiki pointed out.

"Because... you don't know yet, do you?" Kiba said, regarding the two twins.

"We don't know what, exactly?" Akane asked, her eyes narrowing. "We came here because Soul Society requested our help, and were the only ones who agreed to go. We didn't expect to see Soul Society in ruin, nor all of you here with us. What happened?"

Minato sighed.

"Sit down, you two. This is a long story, and we don't have much time to tell it. So much is at stake here..."

"First of all, let me be the first to tell you that Soul Society has been destroyed, and we were not here. We were in Hueco Mundo, idiotically hunting down a targeted Hollow, who at the same time is the one responsible for this entire disaster. We just got back..."

"We know about your proposed invasion, you were planning on hunting down Vulpes C, but we didn't realize that you guys were all ready to do it..." Taiki pointed out.

"That's not all. What I'm about to tell you may come as a big surprise, and something you may not want to hear. We've been searching for your brother for a long time now, and you're well aware of the lengths we'd go to find him..."

Akane's eyes snapped open.

"Naruto? Our brother... does that mean you found him?" she asked. She had a bad feeling about where this was going. Kushina burst into tears again, and many of Naruto's friends began to look solemn.

"Yes... Vulpes C... the one who destroyed the village of Konoha, is also the mastermind behind this entire invasion, and by the looks of it, he succeeded. Vulpes C is Naruto. Vulpes C the Hollow is your brother..." Minato finally choked out.

The two Zero Division members stood there in stunned silence. Even Akane's mouth was hanging open.

"_What?!" _Taiki spluttered. Ukitake and Kyouraku had not said a single word during the entire monologue by Minato, but even they had to way in on this state of affairs.

"That boy you've been looking for for so long... your son... he's behind all this. The son of a Captain..." Ukitake commented.

"So all this time we've been looking for a Hollow. Judging by his actions, it's clear he has no love for us..." Akane pointed out. "Based on what he's done, we're going to have to kill him," she said, with no hesitation. She had never even met her older brother, so she didn't have the same reservations as her parents might.

Minato, Kushina, and Naruto's old friends winced at the blunt revelation. That statement was likely very true; Naruto chose his side over three centuries ago, and he hadn't looked back ever since. It just wasn't a thought that they liked to think about.

"Where is he now?" Akane asked, her voice dangerous.

"That's just it..." Kyouraku piped up. "You came at likely the worst possible time. Since they have already finished invading the Soul Society, there's one more possible destination for those Arrancar. The Spirit King..."

"_What? _We can't hang around here, after all! We need to get back to our duties, immediately! Let's go, Taiki!" Akane ordered to her brother, who frowned at her, but didn't necessarily disagree.

"But, what about everyone here?" he asked.

"No time! I know we haven't seen everyone in such a long time, but Our Lord needs our assistance. We probably shouldn't have even left our cities, because our mistake may cost everyone in this world."

Akane wasted no time in climbing back into the Tenchuren, without even saying goodbye or anything to her parents and the rest of the Konoha Association.

"Wait, Akane!" Minato called after her. This could've been their one true chance to pursue Naruto, and they were not about to let it fall from their grasp. Akane stopped in her tracks, but otherwise did not acknowledge Minato's voice.

"Take us with you. All of us. We want to confront Naruto..."

"Dad, as much as I respect your skills as a Shinigami, you know as well as anyone that unauthorized Shinigami are not allowed inside the Spirit King's palace. Not to mention, we cannot fit so many people inside the Tenchuren. Even if I granted that request, only about ten or so members could fit alongside us in there..."

"Then just take as many as you can. Please, Akane! We feel responsible for this!" Kushina piped up.

"Maybe we should take them along, Akane. This invasion doesn't sit right with me; we may need all the help we can get!" Taiki commented, to his much stricter sister.

Akane sighed.

"Fine, we'll take this along. But if things go south quickly, _you're _going to take the fall for this, got it?" she told her brother, who nodded with an idea of seriousness.

"We leave immediately. We cannot waste any more time here. Who knows what may be occurring in the Royal Palace while those Arrancar are there. The other members of the Royal Guard are strong, but judging from the destruction around Soul Society, there has never been an invasion like this. I have a bad feeling about this..."

Minato nodded to his daughter, before turning back to the rest of the Konoha Association, which were huddled up on the balcony of the First Division, looking solemn.

"Needless to say, no matter what happens from this point on, things will never be the same. Naruto has done irreparable damage to the Soul Society, and in a way we are the ones responsible for it. But, we must do whatever it takes to stop him. All of you back there..." he was gesturing to the bulk of the Konoha Association. Those who had never known Naruto in life, and had come to Soul Society long after Pain's invasion.

"I cannot drag you into this. You accompanied me to Hueco Mundo, and for that I am thankful. But, I think it would be best for all of you to stay behind and help with the rebuilding of Seireitei. Kushina... Jiraiya-sensei... Tsunade-sama, all of Naruto's friends from Konoha... I would be very thankful if you were to accompany me to the Spirit Palace. If we all confront Naruto himself over this, I will we may have a chance at winning..."

"You don't need to say anything, Minato. All of us feel the same way. We want to stop Naruto, no matter what it takes for us to do so. With that being said, we will accompany you to the Royal Palace."

"I would like to come along with you, Minato-san. I have gone far too long without seeing the human world or Soul Society. I don't want them to be destroyed," Ichigo pointed out. Minato regarded him carefully, before nodding.

"Then let us hurry..." Akane piped up. "No more time for conversation. All of you who are coming, please step inside the Tenchuren. We will have to travel to the Shiba complex, and using Shiba Kuukaku's cannon to reach the Royal Palace. We have no time to waste..."

With Kyouraku and Ukitake watching, and the majority of the Konoha Association waiting behind, those who would decide the fate of Soul Society stepped inside the Tenchuren.

Minato, Kushina, Jiraiya, Tsunade, Rin, Hinata, Shikamaru, Kiba, Neji, and Ino, along with Ichigo. Those eleven would assist the Royal Guard in their endeavor, along with Akane and Taiki.

Akane herself sighed one last time, before closing the door to the large pillar. The remaining Shinigami watched as the pillar took to the sky, rapidly in pursuit of the renegade Naruto.

* * *

Okay, we're done here.

Short one, with only around 4,000 words, but things are starting to wind down now, with the beginning of the final arc. No translations this time, so I'll see you all next time.

_**Alban55**_


	57. Multitud

Okay, here we go.

* * *

Chapter 57: Multitud

The citizens of Rukongai did not even know what was happening.

It had been a weird day for all of them, and at the end of it, they were confused. They had been taught for their entire afterlives that the Seireitei was untouchable. That no one could defeat. Yet, the Seireitei had duly been defeated. Quite soundly at that.

And now, with the Seireitei in shambles, they were stunned when the saw a large white pillar soar across the skies like a divine chariot, followed by another identical hours only hours after. It seemed that it was in hot pursuit of the previous one.

Within the pillar, there were twelve different Shinigami, each one of various strength and skill levels. Yet, they all had origins that traced back to the same village.

Minato, Kushina, Jiraiya, Tsunade, Rin, Neji, Hinata, Shikamaru, Kiba, and Ino, along with the Royal Guard members Akane and Taiki. Everything seemed okay within the pillar for them, other than the fact that it was slightly cramped.

"I hope nothing bad has happened to the Shiba..." Hinata pointed out. It was fairly rare for one as quiet as her to initiate a conversation, but nonetheless, she said something that had been on all of their minds.

"Knowing the nature of these Arrancars, I have a bad feeling about them. Shiba Kuukaku has a nasty temper, and when someone like Naruto intrudes on her property demanding the use of the cannon, it won't end well. Besides that, there's no way that she's willingly lend aid to creatures such as Arrancar..." Neji responded to her.

The Tenchuren continued to soar across the upper districts of Rukongai, the tension in the air forcing them to not create any conversation past that point. Eventually, the strange sight of the Shiba complex came into view, though it wasn't like they could miss it.

What was more bothersome for that was the fact that the house as well as the giant stone hands that served to decorate the area were all in ruins. The Kakaku Cannon was the only thing that remained intact. There was no sign of another Tenchuren.

"Oh, crap, looks like we were too late. We can only hope Shiba Kuukaku is still alive at this point, because if she's not, we may be in a bit of a bind." Jiraiya commented.

"Bring it down, Akane!" Taiki said.

Akane did just that, pressing a few buttons on the dashboard, which killed the power to the Tenchuren and brought it down onto the lawn of the Shiba complex.

The dozen Shinigami all exited the vehicle, while a few of them stayed behind to tend it in preparation for the launching back to the Royal Palace. Akane and Taiki, along with their parents, entered the ruined Shiba complex.

The halls were in severe disarray, and many priceless Shiba artefacts were thrown off the wall. The two bodyguards and servants of the Shiba complex lay either dead or unconscious, and the Namikaze family proceeded down the hallway with a heavy heart.

The sliding door to the main room of Shiba Kuukaku was sliced in half, and the wood and paper that decorated the door were ripped and thrown apart by the chaos.

Wasting no time, Akane entered the room. Her brother and parents followed not long after. They were met with a chaotic scene similar to the one that had occurred outside.

"A... A-Asshole. H-How dare that asshole do this!"

"Kuukaku-san!" Taiki exclaimed, shocked the grisly scene. Ganju lay over to the side aways; apparently he had tried to fight the Arrancar. He was unconscious or dead, but they didn't have enough time to figure out which.

Kuukaku was in bad shape, however.

"T-Taiki, A-Akane... what are you two doing here? A-And why are Minato and Kushina here as well?" Kuukaku asked, the normally fesity woman lay heavily injured in a pile of her own blood.

Minato could already guess what had happened. Naruto or another Arrancar had done this. They had probably demanded the use of the Kakaku Cannon, and when the temperamental Kuukaku decided to give them a piece of her mind, Naruto lost his patience. Kuukaku obviously would be no match for him.

"What happened here?" Taiki asked, cradling Kuukaku's body gently. The woman grit her teeth together ferociously; she seemed more angry than she should be considering her injuries.

"A-Arrancar. S-Seven of them. They arrived her just hours ago using a Tenchuren. I-I thought it would be you two considering no Arrancar's ever been able to use that vehicle, but it was Arrancar. And a traitor to the Zero Division. A-Anyway, they demanded the use of my Kakaku Cannon; t-they wanted to storm the Royal Palace. O-Obviously, I refused, but t-their leader, he did _this_ to me. And using the strong Kidou of the traitorous member of the Royal Guard, they have managed to use my Kakaku Cannon. They are in the R-Royal Palace right now!"

"A traitorous member of the Royal Guard? Who would do that?" Minato asked. Akane and Taiki also seemed rather interested in this type of news. A traitor to the Royal Guard would definitely make this invasion far more possible for the Arrancar.

"S-Sakura... H-Haruno Sakura is the traitor. She was in league with those Arrancars all this time, and with her Kidou... there's no way they wouldn't be able to invade the Royal Palace!"

"_What?! Sakura!?_" Kushina exclaimed, her mouth hanging wide open. Sakura was apparently Naruto's teammate in life, so Kushina had trusted. She had always seemed a little aloof, but not the type of person who would think of betraying the Soul Society.

"Sakura... she's the newest member of the Royal Guard. The Spirit King thought there should be some expansion, and the consensus was that Haruno would be taken into the guard. A Tenchuren disappeared right before we came down here, but we didn't bother to check who had left before coming down. The new Royal Guard member... this is a disaster..." Akane mumbled.

"Anyway, Sakura's betrayal is not important right. We're on borrowed time as it is. Kuukaku-san... we are very sorry to ask this of you in such a state, but there is a troublesome thing occurring right now. We'd like to go the Royal Palace as quickly as can be..." Taiki told her, his voice one of authority.

"T-Troublesome things, huh? W-Well, I sure do love troublesome things, but not at the c-cost of getting me nearly killed. I really am boiling with hatred of those Arrancar. Allow me to do everything I can to help you in your mission..."

"We are all very grateful for your bravery and your determination, Kuukaku-san. We will not let you down this time..." Taiki told her, before letting her down gently. Kuukaku winced slightly as she tried and struggled to bring herself to her feet, her determination not failing her where her body did.

"I swear I'll get the lot of you up there to the Royal Palace. Just promise me one thing! Promise me that you'll really stick it to that blonde asshole while you're up there. I owe him a smack!"

* * *

"And boom! We're done! Your army will be arriving shortly. There's no way my "comrades" will be able to ignore such a massive wave of Hollows able to threaten the Spirit King. Though, I hope you're prepared for a massive loss of numbers while you're here.

"It doesn't matter. Valicav should be able to raise the morale of them regardless of how many are lost. I'm more concerned about what happens if any of these guys are attacked..." he gestured back. The other six remaining Espada stood steadfast.

The other members of the Royal Guard had probably been alerted to their presence, but it was far too late for that. The invasion of the Royal Palace had officially begun.

This was a very large area for a pocket dimension, and Naruto had never really seen anything like it before. They were currently floating on a disk that suspended high above the Vestibule Road far below, but the disk was not some small flat expanse. Rather, it was an entire city, with many empty buildings high above the expanse. There were several other disks floating high above the ground, each of which contained their own city.

The disk they were was Sakura's own personal city, her own personal quarters that had been granted to her just a couple of days ago. Naruto looked off into the distance. There was an enormous cylindrical building directly to the northwest of their position. That was the Greater Soul King Palace, and it was where the Soul King resided with his family. It was also the place that Naruto had been longing for, and where he would finish his life long goal. All thirteen keys were in his pocket now.

Sakura's city was quite unique, and different than the other cities that floated around the Soul King's dimension. It was very sleek and metallic in design, giving it a very futuristic feel to it. There were flashing lights of multiple colors hanging above the doorways to the buildings, which were unoccupied. The only purpose they served was to provide safe facilities for which to practice and experiment with new kinds of Kidou. The main building at the center, a large dome-like structure, was where the Arrancar and Sakura currently resided. They were on the top floor, where the walls consisted of nothing more than a domed window, which granted them a full view of the Spirit King's dimension.

A panel was the only thing that was set up in this room, at the center of it. There was a groove which looked like it fit Sakura's hand perfectly, which several lines that glowed with a blue energy running up it.

Naruto and the other Espada watched Sakura work in stony silence. This was all part of the plan, and was the reason why Valicav and the rest of the Hollow army had remained stationed within Hueco Mundo, waiting for their chance to be useful. The other non-Espada Arrancar were left to clean up the mess in Seireitei.

It was already done, but when Sakura had put her hand in that panel and channeled her reiatsu, there was a change that occurred. Based upon the spike in her reiatsu, she was using some kind of Kidou, one that Naruto and the other Espada recognized immediately.

The Garganta. It was how the Hollow army would get here to the Royal Palace. As soon as Sakura and placed her hand inside that panel and chanted the Kidou, there was a rumble that resonated throughout the entire Royal Palace.

It wasn't just a regular Garganta; it was a Garganta that was on a much larger scale than any Garganta the Hollows had ever seen before. This Shinigami had managed to take the Garganta and magnify it tenfold.

"It's done now. The Garganta is open. We are prepared to storm the Royal Palace and turn the cycle. I will accompany you on this, and it's up to you to decide whether _they..._" she pointed to the other Espada. "will be coming too..."

"Yes, you stupid bitch. We are ready. You guys..." "Will all be coming with me. There's no real enemy to fight here, and once we get the cycle turned, everything will be ours for the taking. The key to our success lies within the Greater Soul King Palace. Let's go..."

"How lame! We're just gonna go there without fighting anyone!" Grimmjow complained. Ulquiorra shook his head at the bloodthirsty Arrancar.

"Yeah, I want to kill more people as much as you Grimmjow, but as long as we're here, we need to fulfill the objective as soon as possible. It's very likely we may run into strong opponents on the way, though..."

"Vestibule Road leads directly into the Great Spirit King Palace, but be careful not to run into any other members of the Royal Guard on the way. They'll be distracted by the Hollows..." Sakura explained.

"Yeah, yeah... let's just go!" Naruto snarled. With a quick flash of his sword, he broke the surrounding area, and with his Arrancar air walking technique, he stepped outside into the windy torrent.

The moment he did so, he two things happened at nearly the exact same time. The first was far more beneficiary to his cause. He saw the black void of the Garganta open, but what a scale it was. The portal covered like skies like a shroud, opening up to reveal the empty space of the Garganta void, which housed millions of Hollows within its depths.

No doubt the Royal Guard was locked onto that void now, for from within its depths, it began spilling Hollows. Thousands of Hollows spilled forth from the black void to land down on Vestibule Road far below. And there were many, many Hollows that made up his army.

There were regular Hollows, Gillians, Adjuchas, along with Hollows of all shapes, sizes and abilities. When they landed, they did not waste a single second. They stormed to the palace as a rate that a force of that size could realistically do, but their main concern was not to take the palace. Rather, when speeding dots emerged from the other cities and traveled down to Vestibule Road. Those speeding dots were taking out dozens of Hollows at a time, but it wasn't enough to slow down the invasion force.

"The Royal Guard is down there. Individually, those Hollows don't stand a chance, but with their numbers they can at least keep the Royal Guard from getting to the Soul King. It's taking all they have to keep them from breaking into the Lower Sanctum. This is where we come in. We'll breach the Upper Sanctum! Let's go!" Naruto cried.

With the lower level of the dimension occupied by both sides almost fully, Naruto and the Espada were easily able to attack the upper level. There was a long, wide stretch of levitating stone that lead to the palace far above the Vestibule Road. It was also where they had parked their own Tenchuren.

When Naruto and his minions were running along the white stone road leading to the Upper Sanctum, the second surprising thing occurred, in quick succession to the arrival of the Hollows.

A second Tenchuren came rocketing across the sky at a high rate, darting past the seven Arrancar and one Shinigami. Sakura's eyes widened, as she picked up on some stunning reiatsu.

"Shit! That's Akane and Taiki; they must have left not long after me to go to Seireitei. But that's not all. I'm sensing some very strong reiatsus coming from within." Sakura pointed out. "Shit! Naruto, I have something to tell you about that Tenchuren! All the people that are in it; it's your family, and your old friends from Konoha!"

Naruto stopped in place, just as he about to enter the Greater Soul King Palace. The Tenchuren impacted heavily upon the wide road they were on, right next to the Tenchuren that they had landed on the other side of the road.

Naruto's eyes were wide, and he rubbed his mask fragments while fondling with the cutlass at his side. His brain was throbbing furiously as the thoughts began to become coherent.

Even Sakura gave him a wide berth as a slithering orange reiatsu was emitted from his body. He chuckled darkly, his voice deeper than even Ulquiorra had ever heard it.

"_**Them, eh? What a wonderful surprise! I'm flattered, truly!"**_ Naruto cackled, his voice raised several octaves up from the chuckle earlier. He turned around, showing the other Espada his bloodshot eyes. His skin was clammier, and when he grinned, they swore they saw cruel sharp black teeth underneath his scowl.

Everyone backed off, and gave him a wide berth as Naruto began to pace... pace slowly but surely down the long road over to where the Tenchuren was.

Before he could go any further, Sakura's arm grasped him around the neck.

"Stop, Naruto! There will be time for that later! Right now, you have to get those thirteen keys into the top tower of the Greater Soul King Palace. Do that, and you can take all the time you need slaughtering them! Right now, let us handle them!"

"_**You better get that arm off of me if you don't want to lose**_** it..." **Naruto hissed. Even Sakura, with all her mental issues, managed to flinch at the tone in Naruto's voice.

"Naruto!" she tried.

"RARRRAGGGGHHHHHHHHH!" someone roared, but this time is was not Naruto. The sudden roar seemed to break everyone out of their stupor as the Konoha Shinigami got out of their Tenchuren. No one on the Arrancar's side said anything as the largest Arrancar among them lumbered down the wide road towards the Tenchuren, huffing and puffing.

He drew his Zanpakutou.

"Get pissed, Segunda Etapa: Ira!"

Throwing caution to the wind, Yammy seemed to finally have enough of sitting on the sidelines. So he rushed the first targets he could possibly find, not caring about the wrath of the Primera later on.

His sword exploded into a burst of red light as he drew it and called his release command, but he was through with holding back. He was going to go Segunda Etapa from the start.

Luckily, the road was very wide, wide enough to accommodate his massive size and weight, but it wouldn't hold if he decided to start thrashing around like an idiot.

"That idiot! What's he doing?" Naruto called out. Yammy's stupidity had thrust him right back into the real world, and he was no longer focused on just killing his family. Rather, he was livid over what Yammy was doing.

Nonetheless, Yammy kept on doing what he was doing. He activated his second release, and using his large size, he covered the distance over to the Konoha Shinigami almost immediately.

* * *

"This is madness..." Akane pointed out. When the Tenchuren arrived within the Royal Palace, they had expected to find an Arrancar invasion of relatively small numbers, with those small numbers being particularly competent fighters. She didn't expect _this_.

Thousands, if not millions of Hollows were crowding the Vestibule Road far below where the Tenchuren landed. The reiatsu was a cacophony of noise, but she could very clearly make out the members of her fellow Royal Guard far below. They were doing everything they could to prevent the palace being stormed, but it seemed that more Hollows just kept swarming in.

"What is going on here?" Ichigo asked, as he stepped out of the Tenchuren. Other members of the Konoha Association stepped out as well, with Minato and Kushina entering the Spirit King's dimension for the very first time.

"Is that..." Ichigo trailed off, as he pointed down the very wide road all the way to the cylindrical building in the back. Right in front of him, there seemed to be people at a distance.

"I don't know how they managed to get those Hollows here, but we made a mistake. We should have been here..." Taiki pointed out. His sister couldn't help but agree with him.

Minato's attention was drawn suddenly by Ichigo's proclamation. He wrapped his arm around Kushina, gesturing to the small figures off in the distance. There seemed to be eight of them, but within that group, there would no doubt be Naruto.

However, they couldn't dwell on this, as a particularly large Arrancar began to rush at them like he was mad. He jumped in the air as much as his large body would allow, before all of them felt a large spike in reiatsu.

"Wha?" Kiba asked suddenly, as the reiatsu covered Yammy, and his body began to morph.

"How troublesome..." muttered Shikamaru, as the impact from a _huge _Arrancar rattled the road they were on and almost made a couple of them lose balance.

"Why is it so huge?" Jiraiya asked. He had never seen a Hollow this big before, and the fact that Naruto had one within his army didn't comfort him. Besides, everyone in the Konoha Association could see the large, black "10" that was tattooed on the Arrancar's giant chest.

"It's an Espada! They're here, everyone!" Ichigo pointed out. "I've seen that one before, but I don't remember him ever being this big!" Ichigo stated. Several members of the Konoha Shinigami had already drawn their swords.

Yammy was as big as advertised, but his second release added to his girth a little bit. The Décima looked a bit like a cross between an ape and a dinosaur. He stood on two legs, his chest very broad and muscular like an ape's, but magnified to an impossibly large scale.

His skin was brown in color, similar to his first release, but his mask had changed. Now it covered almost all of his face, with four long spikes sticking out of the back end.

"Yeaaaahhhhhhhh! You weak ass babies get to die by the hands of Yammy! Here it comes!" he roared, as he reared back and threw a slow yet powerful punch directly down upon the Tenchuren.

"Oh, for crying out loud!" Taiki muttered. His Zanpakutou, a long katana at his hip, was drawn from its sheathe. Its hilt was a deep blue, with the guard of it two curvatures that thrust out of the sword like wings.

With a well-placed Shunpo, he met the Décima in mid-air, and with a quick precision, he got in front of the large Arrancar. After he had done that, he managed to lop off the massive arm with very little effort.

"AAUUGHHHHHH!" Yammy cried out in pain. "You weak little insect! How dare you! I'll crush you all!" Yammy roared. If he had wanted to, Taiki could've finished off Yammy right then and there, but instead, he sheathed his Zanpakutou.

"This is a waste of time, and I'm not even going to bother. This should be something you could take of, alright?" he asked, going to the back of the Tenchuren.

"Why didn't you finish him off?" Akane asked her brother. Taiki grinned at her.

"I wanted to look cool!" he proclaimed.

Akane sighed.

"Anyway, I'm sorry! Dad, mom, I apologize for this. It seems that right now the other members of the Royal Guard are trapped in a fight with what seems to be millions of Hollows. We brought you here like you wanted, but now we have to go fulfill our duty and keep those Hollows from invading the Greater Palace. You'll have to meet with Naruto without us..." Taiki told them.

"Yeah, that's fine. We should be able to handle it on our own. Just go down there and help your fellows. This situation isn't looking very good..." Minato told them.

Without another word, the two siblings leapt off the bridge to the Greater Palace, and down into the endless mob of Hollows.

"We'll try and finish up as soon as we can, and then go back you up if you need it!" Taiki called back to his parents. Minato gave him a thumbs up.

"Now that we're here, what do we do with this troublesome Arrancar?" Shikamaru asked, the question that was on everybody's mind. Yammy was still reeling in pain from the loss of his arm, but considering the number "10" on his chest, he seemed to be the weakest Espada.

"H-He's coming again..." Hinata commented. Indeed, the Décima Espada was starting to get over the loss of his right arm, and was preparing to attack again.

"We don't have time for this. Stand back, everyone. I'll do this..." Minato told all of his subordinates. Everyone there, from Jiraiya to Kushina to Neji, stood back as they watched the former Fourth Hokage and current Fifth Division Captain draw his Zanpakutou.

It was a normal katana, the most common of all Zanpakutou. The hilt was a bright yellow, with a guard shaped like jagged zigzagging line that wasn't quite a lightning bolt. But within the core of the Shinigami powers, there was so much more.

"Gleam, Kiroi Senko!"

There was a bright flash of yellow reiatsu that emanated from Minato's sword, showering the surrounding area in a pure yellow light.

"W-What the fuck?!" Yammy shouted rudely, covering his face with one of his massive arms. The rest of the Konoha Association looked in awe at the Fifth Division Captain, and his legendary Shikai.

The Shikai of Minato's Zanpakutou was very similar to his sealed state... if you were looking at the hilt. The hilt was the same as always, but where the blade once was emerged a long, slender beam of yellow energy, similar in structure to the Quincy's Seele Schneider, though it was much more uniform, and unlike Seele Schneider, it was a pure sword and nothing but.

"B-Bright... what do you plan on doing with that thing?" Yammy asked. Minato didn't say anything for a few seconds, before he addressed the Décima Espada.

"Sorry, Arrancar, but I don't have time to chat with you. My son is directly behind you right now, and I need to get to him as soon as possible. I will finish this up quickly."

Minato grunted as he swung his sword diagonally, not even coming close to hitting Yammy. Yammy scratched his head for a couple minutes, before he laughed out loud.

"Haha! What was that?! That wa-" he cut off, before there was a burst of hot air followed by a beam of light which materialized directly in the center of Yammy's stomach.

"Blagghhh!" the Décima cried out, as the beam of light that materialized from Minato's sword punched a hole in Yammy that very nearly cut the gigantic Arrancar in two.

Blood poured from the wound in buckets as the gigantic Arrancar lost his balance. With his big body, he flopped over the side of the bridge, landing with a thud down below, where the Hollows were trying to move their way towards the Greater Palace.

"Alright, let's move on..." Minato stated, reverting his sword back to its sealed state and sheathing it. The other Shinigami looked at him and shuddered, most of them anyway.

"That's one scary Shikai. That big guy didn't even stand a chance!" Kiba commented.

"Be careful. That Arrancar was an Espada, but from the looks of things, he was the tenth one. That means he was the weakest of all the Espada. It's likely there will be tougher opponents from this point on. Right now, we need to move. Find Naruto!"

Minato didn't need to tell them twice, as they noticed one of the Arrancar over on the far side of the road began walking to them. Minato's mouth went dry as the Arrancar came closer to them.

He had spiky blonde hair.

* * *

"That idiot..."

Ulquiorra was as blunt as usual, but there was no denying to anyone there that what Yammy had pulled was incredibly stupid. The big Arrancar _was _incredibly stupid after all, and Ulquiorra supposed that it was only a matter of time before Yammy got tired of following Naruto's rules and just went out in his own.

As a result, it had gotten him killed.

"Well... that was quite the display..." Harribel commented, a rare initiation of conversation from her. Honestly, they had seen the blonde man activate his Shikai from this great distance, and take out Yammy with barely a thought.

"That's my shitty dad. I knew he was always a talented Shinigami, but this was Yammy's own fault that he charged in like that. There was no avoiding the result."

"This wasn't the result I wanted, but whatever. We're here already! As much as I'd love to confront all those motherfuckers right now, I know I simply don't have the time for it. If the Royal Guard don't remain distracted by the Hollow army, then then will all be useless. However..." Naruto sighed, before he stepped forward.

"Naruto? What are you doing?" Sakura asked.

"I'm gonna go leave them a present, you see..." Naruto said enthusiastically. "Stay here. All of you..." he ordered, before he bounded off down the suspended bridge over to where the Tenchurens lay.

The Espada sat there in stony silence.

Naruto himself saw his hated family and former friends get closer and closer as he ran. The looks on their faces changed from indifference, to shock and horror as he approached.

* * *

"H-He's coming. Naruto is coming!" Kiba shouted out over the din, as they watched the blonde-haired, red-eyed Arrancar rapidly close the distance between them.

The bunch of Shinigami murmured amongst themselves as Naruto slowed down significantly, to the point where his speed decreased to a slow walk along the road. He was very close to them now.

No one said a single word; the tension in the air was thick enough to be cut with a knife. And when he arrived in full, the Konoha Association got their first glimpse of Naruto for over three-hundred years.

They were surprised by how little he changed.

All of them had at least aged somewhat, but other than the Arrancar changes, there wasn't much change in Naruto's appearance. Of course he had the mask fragments, and his eyes were permanently red now, but other than that he looked like the same exact sixteen year old that had died all those years ago.

Kushina's eyes began to water, while all of Naruto's former friends began to gape at the Arrancar in front of them. Appearance wise he was similar, but his demeanor and the way he carried himself were _so _different.

When they looked at him, it was like looking into an abyss. He carried himself with such a mark of malice and death that it was practically washing off of him in waves.

"N-Naruto. It's you..." Minato coughed out. He didn't really know what else to say. Hinata burst into tears, while several of Naruto's other former friends just stood there with their mouths open.

"Me? Well, yeah... guess it is me!" Naruto said after the long silence ended. He noticed Hinata shuffle up to where his father was, and a red-headed woman that Naruto didn't recognize.

"Naruto... your mother and I have been searching for you for such a long time. And... you're a Hollow..." Minato said awkwardly.

"_So, that's my mother? Whatever, I'm still gonna kill her..."_

"Wow, everyone's here..." Naruto whistled. Besides his parents, there was Ero-sennin, Tsunade-baa-chan, Shikamaru, Hinata, Neji... the works. It was a glorious reunion.

"Naruto... do you realize what you're doing? What you have done?" Minato asked.

"Yeah... I'm invaded the Soul Society, killed countless Shinigami, and have now invaded the Royal Palace. I've been wanting to do this for three centuries now; of _course_ I know what I'm doing!"

The way he said those things with such non-chalance made them flinch.

"But... why?"

"Why? That's the question, isn't it All of you... that's why. I hate all of you so _so _much, and you guys..." he pointed towards the back, to where Naruto's former friends were standing.

"I saw it _all... _and heard it _all_..." he stated dangerously.

Naruto's friends looked at him, confused.

"Perhaps it didn't occur to you at the time..." he said dangerously, as he paced around them all like a predator scouting out its prey. "But I was there when I died, in Konoha. As a Plus. It was a very short time I endured as a Plus, because I became a Hollow right after that. Does anyone want to guess why?" he asked rhetorically. He had them all in the palms of his hands.

No one dared say anything.

"Well, when I was an innocent little Plus, I thought all of you were my friends. But then, I happened to hear all that _slander_ from those I considered precious to me. And to top it all off, I saw with my own eyes what that old fuckhead did to my dead body, how he mass-produced a load of living weapons, and you all did _nothing_ to stop it! Do you remember that now, huh?!" he asked angrily. His former friends were staring at him with shock. He had been there to witness all of that?

"I became a Hollow and channeled all of my hatred towards the village of Konoha. When the Shinigami got in my way of destroying Konoha, they became hated targets as well. But luckily, I have destroyed Konoha already, and am right on track with the second goal: destroying Soul Society, and all of _you..._" he pointed to them, before he laughed madly.

"Naruto-kun!" a normally shy, feminine voice spoke up surprisingly loudly.

Naruto turned around, putting his back to all of them.

"Naruto-kun, look at me!" Hinata scolded, tears welling up in her eyes.

The Arrancar turned back around, regarding the girl that had a crush on him all these years.

"What?"

"So you're saying... you turned into a Hollow because of the way Konoha treated your honor?"

"You could say that, yes..." Naruto pointed out. His voice was becoming much quieter, and the rest of the Konoha Association was beginning to wonder what Hinata's plan was.

"Poor Naruto-kun... you have suffered so much..." Hinata cooed, her voice getting much quieter and softer.

Naruto raised an eyebrow, before a look of bewilderment spread itself upon his face.

"W-What? Do you have any idea who I am? What I've done!?" he told Hinata, his voice cracking significantly as he raised it in volume.

"_She's trying to appeal to him using pity and emotion. Naruto's a Hollow; he doesn't understand these sorts of things, so he's getting very confused. He doesn't have any idea how to respond to this..._" Minato said. Honestly, it was actually pretty dangerous what Hinata was doing, but Naruto seemed to be getting out of it. He had no idea what to do.

"I don't care. To me, you'll always be Naruto-kun! You may have done many horrible things, but on the inside... you're just lonely and sad. You never wanted to become a Hollow..." If it were even possible, Hinata's voice managed to get even softer.

The other members of the Konoha Association were on edge, but they seemed to be in support of what Hinata was doing, as Naruto's reiatsu reached an all-time low, and he slumped to his knees.

It was incredible; Hinata was disabling him with just her words.

Naruto punched the ground in frustration.

"Make it stop! Please! Don't say anything more!"

To the surprise of everyone present, Hinata took a step forward.

She went up to the fallen Arrancar, and knelt down before him. She was beginning to cross the line, but the rest of the Konoha Association were too mesmerized to stop her.

"It's alright... Naruto-kun. You don't have to be sad anymore. All of the things you did... you can never put those things behind you, but you'll _always _have someone that cares about you. If there's any place for you to start over... then I would call Soul Society the perfect place."

"B-But... I'm still a Hollow."

At this point, Hinata did the most surprising thing of all.

She hugged him.

It all happened at once, it seemed like. Naruto was on h is knees, looking at the ground in despair, before Hinata just went up and hugged him directly out of nowhere.

Naruto screamed; he didn't know how to respond, but Hinata shushed him with her words, cooing at him gently as he settled into her embrace. Minato was stunned. They were all stunned. Naruto was completely disabled.

Hinata smiled, the look in her lavender eyes a look of endearment. Her arms were fully wrapped around Naruto, and as she held him, she felt something wet douse the fabric of her robe.

"_Is he... crying?"_ Minato asked himself.

"There, there, Naruto-kun. It's alright... you don't have to do those things anymore..." Hinata told him. Naruto sniffed, tears rushing down his face, before he nodded.

"Thank you... Hinata. I-I'm so... I'm so..." he trailed off, pulling his face from Hinata's chest.

"**_I'm so_**_** HAPPY**!"_ he roared, locking eyes with Hinata. The look on his face was an absolute nightmare, and all of the tears that he had been crying before were gone. He was not crying.

Hinata stood there in shock, as Naruto extended his arm and thrust his powerful fist straight through her chest...

* * *

Yeah, I went there.

**Translations and Other Features**

Segunda Etapa: Ira: Second Stage: Anger

Kiroi Senko: Yellow Flash

**Current Espada**

1st: Naruto Uzumaki

2nd: Ulquiorra Cifer

3rd: Coyote Starrk

4th: Baraggan Louisenbairn (deceased)

5th: Tia Harribel

6th: Nnoitra Gilga

7th: Grimmjow Jeagerjaquez

8th: Zommari Rureaux (deceased)

9th: Szayel Aporro Granz (deceased)

10th: Yammy Llargo (deceased)

**Konoha Association**

Namikaze Minato: 5th Division Captain

Uzumaki Kushina: 3rd Division Captain

Jiraiya: 9th Division Captain

Hatake Kakashi: 5th Division Vice-Captain (deceased)

Rin: 3rd Division Vice-Captain (Captain level)

Tsunade: 4th Division Vice-Captain (Captain level)

Sarutobi Hiruzen: Visored

Hyuuga Hinata: 13th Division Vice-Captain (above Vice-Captain level)

Nara Shikamaru: 8th Division 3rd Seat (above Vice-Captain level)

Inuzuka Kiba: 7th Division 4th Seat (Vice-Captain level)

Hyuuga Neji: 6th Division 3rd Seat (above Vice-Captain level)

Yamanaka Ino: 10th Division 3rd Seat (Vice-Captain level)


End file.
